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02 Mar 2009 23:30

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U.S.: Fun fact about RNC chair Michael Steele: He cowers quickly.

  • Two days ago: The day Rush Limbaugh gave a killer CPAC speech, the RNC chairman said something pretty harsh about the man of the moment: “Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh — his whole thing is entertainment. He has this incendiary — yes, it’s ugly.” He said this on, of all places, D.L. Hughley’s new CNN show.
  • Today: Man, he backed down like France in a World War. Today, in a phone interview, Steele was much less blunt about his words: “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.” Dude, you run a freaking political party and need to look strong. Need a hug? We give free hugs here. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2009 23:10

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Culture: David Foster Wallace’s failed struggle with the written word

  • What goes on inside is just too fast and huge and all interconnected for words to do more than barely sketch the outlines of at most one tiny little part of it at any given instant.
  • Author David Foster Wallace • From a 2001 short story. Wallace died last year after committing suicide. His unfinished third novel, “The Pale King,” will come out next year, but an excerpt is available at The New Yorker Web site. On a side note, this linked article would require 800 ShortFormBlog posts to do justice; it’s freaking huge. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2009 22:26

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Sports: TJ Houshmandzadeh drags his huge unpronounceable name to Seattle

  • $40 million for the wide receiver to go to the Seahawks source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2009 22:17

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Tech, U.S.: The latest type of Supreme Court evidence: YouTube videos

This video of a police officer repeatedly tasering a motorist was shown in a recent case. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2009 21:28

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Music: “Do You Realize” how awesome Oklahoma’s state song is?

  • The Flaming Lips are rockin’ their home state. Wayne Coyne must be proud. Today, the state legislature passed a resolution naming the state’s official rock song, and the one they picked is frickin’ killer. “Do You Realize??,” off the Oklahoma band’s “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” beat out songs from the last 50 years (including the All-American Rejects, thank God) to win one for the indie kids. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2009 21:00

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Biz, U.S.: AIG is still around, but it’s really dead in its current form

  • Why it needs to die Simply put, it’s too freaking big. Any company that posts a $61.5 billion loss in income in a single quarter – they lose more money in a minute that most of us see in a year – is too freaking big. Ever throw $400 grand into a fire, then do it again 150,000 times? It’s kind of like that.
  • Government control In exchange for yet another $30 billion bailout, two of AIG’s largest assets – American International Assurance and its Asian operations – will be directly owned by the government and will be sold. Taxpayers, who now largely own AIG, will reap the benefits – eventually.
  • A smaller, leaner AIGWhy is the government putting so much work into keeping the monster alive? Well, if they don’t, it will worsen the stock market collapse even further. But when the dust is settled, don’t expect the company – if it survives – to remain in its current form. It’s too freakin’ big. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2009 20:41

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Music, Offbeat: The key to genius: Listening to Beethoven. Or Sufjan Stevens.

Virgil Griffith compared SAT scores and your favorite bands. Sufjan is for nerds. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink
 

02 Mar 2009 10:30

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U.S.: Obama’s chief of staff: Yeah, Rush is the GOP’s energy

  • He is the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party, and he has been up front about what he views, and hasn’t stepped back from that, which is he hopes for failure.
  • Rahm Emanuel • President Obama’s chief of staff, talking about Rush Limbaugh’s scene at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday night. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2009 10:23

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U.S.: The Dow’s doing particularly bad this morning

  • 6,969 its number minutes into trading; no jokes, OK? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

02 Mar 2009 10:17

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Tech: Is the Amazon Kindle’s screen too fragile?

  • A reviewer thinks so. Jeff Reifman, who was attempting to review the New York Times reading experience on the Kindle 2, didn’t even get a day without a scratch (which apparently may have come from a candy bar wrapper?!), a scratch that Amazon seemed very hesitant to replace and probably won’t. Hmm, that doesn’t sound promising for a mass-market product.
  • Well, how does it read? Reifman’s experience with reading the Times was OK, but the interface had its quirks. Among other things, he kept wanting to scroll down, web-style, rather than turn the page like the Kindle’s designed for. Reifman also noted that buying a Kindle and a Kindle subscription to the Times was much cheaper than the paper version. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 8 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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