Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

14 Mar 2010 23:08

tags

Politics: Max Headroom: Jesse Ventura crazy conspiracy lightning round!

  • The former Minnesota governor is a 9/11 truther. Great. Jesse Ventura made the media rounds this week promoting a book where he analyzes pretty much every conspiracy ever, and calls it a lie. The book, “American Conspiracies: Lies, Lies, and More Dirty Lies that the Government Tells Us,” is bound to be a lightning rod (how ’bout that title?), but is it all just a crock of @(&!? Judge for yourself from these clips.

  • On “The View” On “The View,” it gets downright heated, especially when he discusses 9/11. We like how Whoopi looks like she just doesn’t want to be there at all. The JFK assassination conspiracies are also quite silly, too. Ventura looks crazy with that nest of gray hair.

  • on “The Today Show”Ventura notes that he didn’t give the book its name. “The title scared my wife,” he starts out. He suggests that the CIA is the key to the conspiracy. Ann Curry makes a major factual error in this clip, claiming that Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray killed presidents.

  • On “Larry King Live” King spent a whole hour interviewing the former governor (worth watching in whole), but this clip on Afghanistan is choice, because he suggests George W. Bush and Dick Cheney essentially let Osama bin Laden get away in Afghanistan. Sigh. Whatta loon.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 22:21

tags

Offbeat: When Rex Roland grades papers, he calls your kid a LOSER

  • -20% for being a LOSER; we grade like this too source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 22:13

tags

Culture: Mission:Impossible star Peter Graves self-destructed. Twitter reacts



Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 22:03

tags

U.S.: Obama’s presidency talks transparency, but doesn’t walk the walk

  • One year is too early to render a final judgment on how far President Obama can move the government toward openness, but this Audit finds that much more pressure and leadership will be necessary, both inside and outside the government.
  • National Security Archive general counsel Meredith Fuchs • Regarding the findings of the private group during the first year of the Obama administration. While the president claimed that his administration would focus on transparency, an audit by the organization finds that the various portions of the government are very slow in processing FOIA requests (some requests are 18 years old!), and most government agencies haven’t increased the number of information releases during Obama’s presidency. Interesting. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 21:46

tags

Biz: Two thresholds for Chris Dodd’s new bank-regulation plan

  • $10
    billion     the amount of assets a bank would have to have to be sanctioned for a consumer-rules violation
  • $50
    billion     the amount of assets a company would have to have to fall under the U.S.’s regulatory watch source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 21:39

tags

Culture: Protip: If you build an effective propaganda poster, Conan will pay you

  • Nice deal, dude! One guy who definitely deserves a payday is artist Mike Mitchell, whose “I’m With Coco” illustration is up there with Shepard Fairey’s oft-litigated Obama “Hope” poster in terms of iconic status. Mitchell licensed rights to Conan’s people for the image (currently getting used on O’Brien’s tour), and he made out with a pretty hefty payday. It’s like he won the lottery. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 20:56

tags

Biz: EMI could be pulled in half by two different suitors

  • music Warner Music Group wants a
    piece of EMI’s recorded output,
    which includes such archive artists
    as the Beatles and such current
    artists as Coldplay.
  • lyrics KKR, a private equity group,
    would much prefer the half of EMI’s
    songs which are worth more in
    royalties, the publishing arm. EMI is
    broke, by the way. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

14 Mar 2010 20:46

tags

World: Did the drug war lead to the slaying of a U.S. official in Mexico?

  • We take very seriously when our employees are harmed, whether the intention was to harm U.S. employees or not. The question of whether this represents some ratcheting up of the drug war will depend on the reason behind the killings.
  • Deputy assistant Secretary of State in charge of Mexico Roberta S. Jacobson • Regarding the killings of a U.S. consular aide (along with her husband) in Mexico. Another consular employee’s husband was also killed and her children wounded. If it turns out that this killing was a conscious attempt to ratchet up the drug war in Mexico, we could be seeing some crazy stuff going down. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 20:33

tags

Tech: Digg’s upcoming redesign: Necessary, but fundamental?

  • Everybody knew it. The second Oprah said the word “Twitter” on her show, Digg looked old hat. It lacked the decentralized social spark other, more recent social media options had perfected. But – lucky us – the site hasn’t taken the passing of time lying down. Coming soon is a top-down redesign that slickens up the look and personalizes the results. Maybe with more personalization and social functions it might be able to solve our fundamental problem with the site. Will Digg get more substance with the changes? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

14 Mar 2010 12:14

tags

Culture: The year’s first $200 million movie: “Alice in Wonderland 3D”

  • $62 million in its second week alone; not bad source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
top tags
older >>