Because Fox News' The 1/2 Hour News Hour fared so well, CNN Headline News is making another go at the "news as entertainment" doctrine with Not Just Another Cable News Show, a weekend show that dives into the CNN video archives, pulls out clips of yesteryear, and asks talking heads like Rachel Sklar and Ana Marie Cox to remember them. It debuts April 5, already has Mediaweek calling it "reliably snarky," and should be off the air by summertime.

HE'S AN ASS MAN Glenn Beck got all huffy puffy over the state of health care in America after a cocktail of drugs totally blew his mind. In a bad way. But what got him there in the first place? Ass surgery. Dude had to get hemorrhoids removed. [HuffPo]

Glenn Beck's monologue on his botched surgery experience leads him down Michael Moore's path, ranting about the American health care system. He doesn't clue us in to what his surgery was for – but, come Monday, might start naming the names who wronged him – but it's hard not to think, with his double-chin agog, perhaps it was a Donda West-kinda surgery. Or did Beck live through the plotline of Awake?

CNN Headline News anchor Nancy Grace has been hospitalized after complications from her pregnancy. She gave birth to twins last week. After experiencing discomfort en route to church "she was brought to the emergency room in Atlanta. Her doctors found two blood clots in her lungs," says a spokeswoman. [TVN]

CNN Headline News car-chase-commentator Rod Bernsen, a former LAPD sergeant, has been cleared of child molestation charges brought against him by two boys who claimed he touched them inappropriately while on a cruise. Bernsen says even though he was acquitted, his life "will never be the same." He plans to never go near children again. Unless they heist a Mercedes SL.

Is the "Glenn Beck experiment" a total failure? The CNN Headline News anchor's ratings are down – his 7pm program was the lowest-rated show from 5pm to midnight in all of cable news (except Tuesday) last week; same goes for his 9pm hour – and, says political blog My Two Sense, "he shows no signs of improving any time soon."

Or maybe we're just freaking out over an abnormal week?

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It's one thing to be given your own show on CNN Headline News, and become successful enough that you don't "need" an hour to talk about yourself on Court TV. But it's another thing entirely to find yourself on Saturday Night Live, being parodied par excellence by one of the show's remaining talents.

Atoosa Rubenstein got the treatment. And so has Nancy Grace, with Amy Poehler delivering those "mmm-kays" and "missing white girls" like the real thing. So how does the Nance feel about it? Mediabistro asks:

What do you think of Amy Poehler's impersonations of you on Saturday Night Live? Have you ever spoken to her?
I haven't spoken to her, but I was totally flattered. It was a big day in my life when I made it into their Prince segment. I actually scared Prince. I'm a huge Prince fan so that was a big moment for me.

You've also been parodied on the soap Passions with a character named Grace Nancier and someone else played a character based on you on Boston Legal. What gives?
I understand I got hit in the head with a shovel (on Boston Legal) but then I appeared on TV with a huge bandage on my head — like a vampire. I'm flattered.

Keep in mind, Nancy appears alongside Star Jones in the May 22 finale of Law & Order: SVU, so there's still plenty of opportunities for other rusty toolshed delights to be levied her way. Not that we encourage that sort of thing.

Reading up on Nancy Grace in the Delaware News-Journal provides the fodder you'd expect from a quick sitdown with the CNN Headline News anchor: even when she's talking about someone else, she's talking about herself.

But it's the last part of the article that managed to catch our attention. The part where she responds – or, rather, doesn't respond – to Keith Olbermann's claims, in a Rolling Stone interview last month, that she exaggerated the circumstances of her husband's death for a more sensational tale.

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Yeah, yeah, MSNBC's ratings are doing better, all thanks to Keith Olbermann. While FNC is slipping, it's still leading the pack. And CNN? Break that race horse's ankles and it's still going to cross the finish line. But what about the bitches of cable news — those secondary networks like CNBC that are more or less experiments in brand extension? For CNN Headline News, things are looking up, thanks to a one Glenn Beck and a little lady named Nancy Grace.

Headline News is a channel that averages 337,000 viewers in prime time, a 59 percent increase from the 212,000 viewers it attracted before changing formats two years ago. Grace and radio talk-show host Glenn Beck are making a lot of noise–not just arguing with people but, alas, in terms of ratings.

Where Headline News averaged around 200,000 viewers before Grace's arrival, it now does better than a half-million in her time period. The ratings for Beck's slot since he arrived in May, and bumped "Showbiz Tonight" to another time, are up 65 percent. Among viewers age 18 to 49, he's up 95 percent.

Though to be fair, Amy Poehler deserves some credit: Without the SNL comic's regular impersonations, a good 12 or 14 people might not know the true beauty that shines through when Nancy starts attacking one of her guests. Not sure about you, but a fight between two pit bulls will never hold our interest; we need a Doberman going after a Mini Schnauzer.

• CNN Headline News' attempt to reinvent its Headline Prime as a zero attention span-friendly Fox News is paying off.

• Kent Brownridge can only spend so much time in cow country.

• The WSJ nips three inches off its hips while getting a full MAC color makeover.

• Vogue plans an Indian edition, where thanks to malnutrition there are few hundred million young girls with the appropriate frail body type.

• CNBC's website gets a new look (video!), though probably still not enough to fend off Fox News' coming biz channel.

• Yahoo and Reuters team up to make anyone with a camera phone a roving paparazzi. Paid? Doesn't sound like it. But let's get all excited about citizen journalism again!

• Magazine publisher, philathorpist, billionaire, and Canadian Louise MacBain defaults on a charity cheque.

• CNET editor James Kim and his family still missing.