Ellen steps up

Ford commercial is the contestants in Mustangs, to Crazy Little Thing Called Love. It's totally forgettable; but is followed by this montage of a ton of celebrities lip synching to Staying Alive.

Funny, a number of them happen to be stars of FOX shows. There's also LeBron James, ex-Friends stars, ex-SNL stars, Ryan, Shaq, Hugh Grant, Dr. Phil, Eric McCormack, Goldie Hawn, Ms. Piggy... I'd list more but I'd blogging this live, it's hard enough avoiding misspellings yo.

Ryan keeps saying the results will shock us--I'd be more convinced if he hadn't also said that at the end of last night's show. Phil Stacey is safe; then another Ryan/Simon Africa clip. 14 family members live in a house the size of a tent--10 of them are AIDs orphans, my gosh.

Simon walks out saying it's intolerable; he really seems shaken. They take one of the women they've visting, Ruth, to the hospital--she's collapsed and it doesn't look good. Simon takes a pretty active role in getting her out of there; but Ryan says she dies two days later.

Ellen says she's personally donating $100,000 and challenges the rich people out there to match that; wow. Aside from 1-877-IDOL-AID, you can also donate at https://www.idolaid.com/.

Josh Groban sings Raise Me Up, with the African Children's Choir. It's sincere and heartfelt; there's a great image of him surrounded by the little kids, in their bright yellow and purple dress. This is probably my favorite performance of the night; the kids all have big, bright smiles, and the words of the song totally fit.

Some facts on Health from the UN's Millennium Project:

-Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.

-More than 50 percent of Africans suffer from water-related diseases such as cholera and infant diarrhea.

-Every day HIV/AIDS kills 6,000 people and another 8,200 people are infected with this deadly virus.

-Every 30 seconds an African child dies of malaria-more than one million child deaths a year.

-Each year, approximately 300 to 500 million people are infected with malaria.
Approximately three million people die as a result.

-TB is the leading AIDS-related killer and in some parts of Africa, 75 percent of people with HIV also have TB.

The facts on malaria reminds me that if you haven't already, check out the video and photos of President Bush dancing and playing the drums with a group from Africa at the White House at an event to draw attention to the problem of malaria.

It had everyone in the office cracking up; but as a few of my friends noted, even as you laugh at how silly our president looks, you're kindof reminded of how very human a person he is, and it all actually winds up being kind of endearing.

I don't know, maybe Karl Rove planned the whole thing. He's got some experience with dancing himself, after all.