An alert and loyal Extreme Mortman reader alerts us to this:

A Mickey Mouse lookalike who preached Islamic domination on a Hamas-affiliated children’s television program was beaten to death in the show’s final episode Friday.

In the final skit, “Farfour” was killed by an actor posing as an Israeli official trying to buy Farfour’s land.

Of course, the final indignity was probably that the Israeli was pricing it wholesale.

Last night’s “Sopranos” finale was chock full of current events references.  One scene featured Tony Soprano’s son A.J. watching video of Karl Rove’s “M.C. Rove” performance at the Radio & Television Correspondents Association Dinner, this time with Kid Creole music as soundtrack.  Of course, if Rich Little wants similar “Sopranos” attention, perhaps he should work on a Phil Leotardo impression.  The guy’s dead, after all.

Tony Soprano survives, Carmela Soprano get whacked, and there’s ducks.  Lots of ducks.  Oh, and we never learn the fate of the Russian in the snow.

Why would anyone write this?

Tony Soprano’s odyssey is nearly at an end. Certain brutish and Brutus death at the hands of his own goons, right? We’ll know soon enough. But Carmela Soprano’s own odyssey chugs along. And it’s a quite different journey from that of her husband. If Tony’s calling is crime, Carmela’s seems to be politics.

Over time on “The Sopranos,” Carmela has made the political transformation from starry-eyed Hillary Clinton admirer to Bush booster. Now the middle-aged empty nester may have the biggest adventure of all: deciding who to pick for president.

Find out by clicking on The Politico here.

Quite an interesting debate brewing.  How similar is Jack Murtha to Tony Soprano?

Today Dana Milbank reports this from the Monica Goodling hearing:

Rep. Chris Cannon (Utah) opted to read into the record a lengthy editorial comparing Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.) to Tony Soprano.

But yesterday’s Los Angeles Times editorialized this:

Actually, Tony Soprano is a less likely role model for Murtha than Lyndon B. Johnson, but that’s part of the problem for Pelosi.

How about this compromise.  Let’s rework that classic ’60s chant: “Hey,  hey LBJ, how many earmarks for mobbed-up New Jersey waste management projects did you fund today?”

John Podhoretz calls last night’s “I Get It!” ending on “The Sopranos” terrible.  I thought so too, until I waited 30 minutes to see Johnny Drama at a nearly identical desert location yelling “Victory!” at the end of “Entourage.”  If that was intentional — an inside HBO joke, perhaps — it straddled what “Spinal Tap” called the fine line between clever and stupid.  I’d pick clever.  Or cleaver.

Tony Soprano’s wife Carmela just might end up being the kind of woman voter who decides the next election — or at least the Republican presidential primary.

Her political leanings are no secret.

In an April 2006 episode, this conversation occured:

Meadow Soprano: “9/11, 9/11. Bush is using it as an excuse to erode our Constitutional protections and you’re falling for it.”

Carmela Soprano: “Well, I voted for him.”

Carmela doesn’t just vote for Bush.  She reads about him, too.  In last night’s episode we saw her reading this in bed.

Perhaps the series finale of The Sopranos might reveal the big question we’ve all been wondering: In 2008 will Carmela go with McCain, Giuliani, or Romney.  Or perhaps Fred Thompson — given her family’s connections to the law.

Gotta love all those huge SUV’s they drive around on “The Sopranos.”  Sunday’s installement featured the Cadillac Escalade, which I believe has trunk space for at least eight dead bodies.  Of course, this being the final batch of shows, we won’t have too many more times to enjoy the opening montage, which features New Jersey footage older than even Don Imus.  Check out this price of gas as Tony Sopranos goes driving by.

My, how much gas prices have skyrocketed since the Sopranos began.  So much for the theory that the Iraq war was fought to get cheap gas.

We read this in Dana Milbank’s Washington Post take on Nancy Pelosi’s guy Jack Murtha losing to Steny Hoyer for House Majority Leader:

One of his chief supporters, James Moran (Va.), stayed behind to give voice to Murtha’s frustrations. “There are a number of members who can’t be trusted,” Moran said of Murtha’s 149 to 86 defeat, minutes after a Murtha aide claimed he had the votes to win. Moran threatened that Murtha foes “will be damaged by this.”  But how, if it was a secret ballot? “Oh, we have a pretty good idea,” Moran said.

So sweet.  Good family values.  For a family like the Sopranos.

The Washington Post reports on politics-driven conspiracy theories driving the plummeting price of gas:

Are the big oil companies lowering prices to help the Republicans?

White House press secretary Tony Snow recently gave the best retort to such comical nonsense:

The one thing I have been amused by is the attempt by some people to say that the President has been rigging gas prices, which would give him the kind of magisterial clout unknown to any other human being. It also raises the question, if we’re dropping gas prices now, why on earth did we raise them to $3.50 before?

Of course, if prices keep on dropping, we might soon get down to Sopranos-level, as immortalized in the opening montage.

Hmmm… perhaps the mob is driving the good economic news?  Just a theory.