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Former host of Win Ben Stein's Money and Turn Ben Stein On (and also some less important jobs like scriptwriting for Richard Nixon) has been terminated from the New York Times. Specifically, he will no longer be writing his weekly business opinion column. The company took one look at his other job as a spokesperson for FreeScore.com and found it to be a conflict of interest.

There are a number of ways this could be spun. No doubt the conservative press will consider this a strike against their cause since they have always pegged the New York Times as a liberal newspaper. I do admit that I find the business practices of sites such as FreeScore.com to be suspect (they advertise as free, but further analysis reveals that one has to pay for their services). Perhaps he should have supported a less sleazy one like Cash4Gold.com.

The following is one of his commercials for FreeScore.com. Judge for yourself whether the Times was justified.

In the last twelve years, Lewis Black has gone from being "that angry guy on The Daily Show" to a comedy icon. Now, he finally has his own show.

In Lewis Black's Root of All Evil, which airs on Wednesdays at 10:30 PM ET on Comedy Central, two comedians argue why the pop culture item they represent is "the root of all evil." Last week's premiere episode, for instance, pitted Oprah against the Catholic church. Black plays the judge who controls the proceedings and makes the ultimate verdict. Sounds corny, but the first episode, which featured Paul F. Tompkins and Greg Giraldo, was wickedly funny and just a tiny bit subversive, everything you want in a good comedy.

I spoke to Black by phone last week; he was in Atlantic City on his stand-up tour. We discussed everything from the 2008 election to being on a cable news show with Ben Stein to sharing a jail cell with Jim Norton. The interview is after the jump.