• before A while back, our boy Robert Gibbs admitted in an interview that he wasn’t able to use Twitter from the White House, which hurts Obama’s until-then-solid Web 2.0 cred.
• now Gibbs joined Twitter today as the account @PressSec, and his handle of the service is a little suspect. He called it “the Twitter.” He’s a PR person. Yikes. source

• After Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen made a point about terror that MSNBC analyst Lawrence O’Donnell didn’t like on Friday’s “Morning Joe,” O’Donnell went into this fit of rage that surprisingly didn’t turn him green and muscular. OK, O’Donnell made a good point. So did Thiessen. No reason to get angry, dude. Unless you’re trying to make good TV. source

• Curiosity is the most powerful thing you own. Don’t put limitations on yourself. Other people will do that for you … failure has to be an option in art and exploration because it’s a leap of faith. In whatever you’re doing, failure is an option, but fear is not.
• “Avatar” director James Cameron • Giving a pretty awesome speech at the TED2010 conference today. TED, which stands for Technology, Entertainment and Design, has regular speeches like this. In Cameron’s, he talked about how his desire to explore led him to ideas like “Avatar” and “Titanic.” Part of his exploratory nature has been nurtured by his deep-sea diving. He’s spent 3,000 hours underwater over the last 40 years (and 500 inside of a submarine), which is kind of a lot. A very inspirational speech for sure. source

• This weekend’s release of “We Are the World 25,” which features Michael Jackson taking on a few lines beyond the grave (both in the song and the video), got us to thinking about the artists with seemingly never-ending vaults, in part because we’re sure Jackson himself will be a victim of this kind of musical grave-robbing. Here’s a sampling of the state of posthumous releases:

• 1. Johnny Cash died way back in 2003, but he has a new album coming out, and “Ain’t No Grave,” held together by a rhythm made of dragging chains, is actually pretty good. Surprising it didn’t get a release back then, honestly (he recorded a lot of tunes with Rick Rubin in the years before his death). It’s one of Cash’s better late-period tunes.
• 2. Nick Drake’s “Family Tree” probably never would’ve seen the light of day had Drake lived to an old age, but the 2007 release of privately recorded demos stands above the fray of most of the grave-robbing reissues by the guitarist. On “Bird Flew By,” you can hear a lot of the blues influence in his guitar-playing.
• 3. Jeff Buckley may perhaps have the legacy most damaged by posthumous releases – even moreso than 2Pac. He had one amazing album and one aborted attempt at a second album that was released as an incomplete work. And a lot of live recordings. “Live at Sin-é” may be the key example: A short EP initially, it was reworked as a monster 34-track compilation in 2003. It’s not necessarily the worst release of his, just the best example.
• 4. 2Pac has tons of posthumous releases (including a live album for a show he wasn’t even headlining), but some of these at least have interesting approaches. In the case of 2004’s “Loyal to the Game,” Eminem produced the entire thing off of some tapes Tupac Shakur’s mom gave him, which means it has some interesting productions and top-of-their-game guests. But it still feels kinda grave-robby, even though it’s respectfully done.
• 5. Michael Jackson will likely follow the same path as the other stars here, and “This Is It” is really only the beginning. We gave the song a good review when it first came out, and the reason it sounds solid is because it was recorded during his still-interesting “Dangerous” era. We’re sure he has some huge vaults. And there are significant financial reasons for digging into them. We’d like to see them go the Elliott Smith route here, with compilations respectful of his legacy. But a Jeff Buckley-style “everything must go” is more likely.

• 57M number of people that got swine flu in the U.S. since the outbreak began last April
• 257k number of people that had to be hospitalized as a result of a strong swine flu case
• 12k number of people that died as a result of getting swine flu, which isn’t really that bad

A little perspective on H1N1:

• 35,000 people usually die from the flu yearly

• » Demographic changes: H1N1 is an odd outbreak, because while it has killed far fewer people than a traditional outbreak, many of those people are younger than 65, a change from traditional influenza, which is often deadlier for the elderly.
• » Did swine flu replace the normal flu? One of the things that researchers found was that most people who they tested with flu symptoms had swine flu, not a normal strain. Which suggests that the swine flu outbreak may have neutered a normal flu season.
• » More’s still on the way: We’re still not out of the woods yet. Flu activity, whether H1N1 or traditional, is still expected for several more months. As long as we don’t have to pull Dustin Hoffman to save the day again. source

• I was not sure whether I should tell the world who I am mainly because of the fact that I am under age. Now I think that it would be better to reveal myself.
• Andrey Ternovskiy • Describing the popularity of his insane webcam-plus-anonymity service, which has taken off in recent weeks, enough that it gets featured in New York Magazine, Good Morning America and The New York Times. We still think it’s a fad, but it’s pretty cool that the Russian student came up with it. Regarding the use that’s become most prevalent – perverts showing off their junk – he notes that while he’s very against it, other people are doing “really unbelievable things I could never think of.” (In a good way.) He has more features planned, which is probably a good thing to extend its pop-culture currency. source

• Google’s got a LOT of PR problems right now. Some of them are legitimate (see Google Buzz), others are simply a side effect of the company’s size. But the fact of the matter is, this hoax, plotted last week while we were complaining about the snow, is pretty dang funny. The car is fake. So is the rage. But the undercurrent is definitely real. source

• Obviously, it isn’t completely clean but, for me, it doesn’t change my appraisal of the text. I believe it’s part of the concept of the book.
• Book critic Volker Weidermann • Regarding the fate of 17-year-old Helene Hegemann’s “Axolotl Roadkill,” a highly-praised German book. The problem with the book? Many passages are apparently plagiarized by another author. However, she claims it wasn’t plagiarism, but a remix of old ideas made new. Despite the controversy brought on by the blogosphere, the Leipzig Book Fair put the book up for a $20,000 prize, knowing about the plagiarism. Kaavya Viswanathan should’ve used that excuse back in 2006. source

• 50% of overweight teens were overweight by 24 months of age
• 90% of overweight teens were overweight by 5 years of age source