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15 Oct 2009 22:54

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Culture: Balloon Boy: “We did this for the show.” Wait, what?

  • Did this kid just admit on Larry King that the whole incident was a giant publicity stunt to keep this family in the spotlight? Boy, I think he just did. Kids say the darndest things! And Wolf Blitzer is a terrible journalist, because he didn’t immediately follow up on what Falcon said. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 22:48

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Culture: Has Maurice Sendak been tilling at critical windmills?

  • Instead of warring with Bettelheim — or the bluenoses who have savaged ‘In the Night Kitchen’ — Sendak should curb the grouching and concede that he owes them a minor debt. There is no cheaper way to market your book than to have it banned or pilloried by the right people.
  • Slate Columnist Jack Shafer • Discussing “Where the Wild Things Are” author Maurice Sendak’s propencity to brink up critics who have slighted the book in the past. Specifically, Sendak has an ax to grind with child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim, who said this about the book: “What’s wrong with the book is that the author was obviously captivated by an adult psychological understanding of how to deal with destructive fantasies in the child.” Shafer says that while he might have a stronger claim for the often-banned “In the Night Kitchen,” he thinks he needs to get off his high horse. • source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 22:12

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U.S.: Obama can’t get his federal judges in; is it because he’s not trying?

  • 90 federal judges, or 10% of the total judge posts, are needed; caseloads are starting to back up
  • three of Obama’s 23 appointees have been approved, mainly because they’re not being fought for source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 22:06

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Culture: The Font Bureau is angry at NBC, quick-suing angry

  • $2 million lawsuit for using Font Bureau’s fonts without their OK source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 21:27

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Offbeat: Balloon Boy hugged by his dad: The fakest hug you’ll see all night

  • Look at all the passion Balloon Dad put into that hug, located at 1:24 in this video. It’s like he might have done it for the purpose of a stunt! We’re not geniuses over here, but we’ve seen real hugs before and that is NOT a real hug. Balloon Boy deserves better than that. Because he was stuck in a freaking attic! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 21:10

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Offbeat: Anne Frank: Here’s our favorite of the many Balloon Boy memes

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 21:03

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U.S.: We bestow a blue ribbon on the Balloon Boy story. A modern classic.

Faux news
Simply put, you had it all. Between the incredibly random nature of your occurrence, the wall-to-wall media coverage, the likelihood of danger, the kid angle (must be emphasized), the reality TV angle, the waste of public resources, the rapt attention you gathered from the public, and the painless resolution that followed hours of panic, Balloon Boy story, you may be the best non-story in the history of news. Way to go, 24-hour news cycle, for giving us hilarity at the cost of actual news. You should be proud. SOURCE
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

15 Oct 2009 11:26

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Tech: 10/GUI dares you to use your fingers instead of a mouse

10/GUI from C. Miller on Vimeo.

  • This is really awesome. It’s a rethinking of the GUI to be something that replaces the mouse AND the complexity of the window system. It uses multitouch, but not on the screen. We’re big fans of everything except the overwraught hipster names it uses. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 11:19

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Sports: Today’s daily poll tackles the Rush Limbaugh/NFL saga

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

15 Oct 2009 11:11

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World: OK, we lied; one more Obama Nobel Peace Prize big number

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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