BREAKING NEWS:
FANATICAL COWARDS HUMILIATED,
ASSAULT ON AMERICAN SENSIBILITIES CALLED OFF!

Never mind. Cooler heads prevailed:

The one thing John Edward definitely crossed over was the line and the 'psychic' has shelved plans for a series of Crossing Over With John Edward episodes focusing on people killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Studios USA Domestic Television said Thursday that it is retreating from the plan to air the segment on broadcast syndication and cable’s Sci Fi Channel.

Citing 'a reaction that none of us expected,' the company's president, Steve Rosenberg, said that while some segments for the shows have already been taped, they will not be broadcast.

I just have one question: Why does Matt Drudge keep posting Barry Diller's mug above these 800-point headlines about the Edward show? Are we to believe that Diller himself came up with the idea and personally attempted to foist it on the saintly, sensitive John Edward against his better judgment? I don't have to be a regular devoted viewer - I don't have to ever have seen the show - to know that Edward himself routinely perpetrates a grotesque intellectual dishonesty upon the public, exploting the most vulnerable in the pursuit of personal profit. He hardly needs help from Diller to work that angle.

Or does he? James Randi recently observed:

I'm told — by very good authority — that the ratings on the new John Edward TV show are not as high as expected, and that we just might expect that it will be pulled. ...The recent WTC tragedy seems to have alerted TV producers to the obvious fact that the presentation of superstitious prattle shows little respect for those among us who are grieving. It seems very sad that they could not have recognized this fact long ago....

If only ... if only ...