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08 Jul 2010 08:56

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U.S., World: Russia and the U.S. all ready to exchange some spies!

  • If at last he is freed — not in the way we wanted, because we wanted him to restore his good name, but it is difficult to do it given our judicial system — at least he will be freed in this way. If he leaves today, it will happen quietly.
  • Lawyer Anna Stavitskaya • Regarding her client, Russian scientist Igor V. Sutyagin, and his possible pending release as soon as today. The scientist, currently being held for treason in Russia, will be reportedly exchanged for ten reported Russian spies as part of a prisoner swap. The U.S. and Russia have neither confirmed nor denied it, although it’s been widely reported and Stavitskaya says Sutyagin verbally agreed to the exchange. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jul 2010 20:27

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Biz: Optimism is back! Stocks had a pretty killer day today

  • 2.9% the increase in the Dow Jones Industrial today
  • 3.1% the leap in the super-exciting S&P 500 today
  • 3.1% the leap in the super-techie Nasdaq today source

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jul 2010 19:23

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Politics: Protip: If you’re a CNN reporter, don’t praise Hezbollah leaders

Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.. One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.. #LebanonSun Jul 04 08:24:22 via Twitter for BlackBerry®Octavia Nasr
octavianasrCNN

  • What was Octavia Nasr thinking? The death of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a controversial cleric whose life and views are way more complex than this tweet gives them credit for, require more context than 140 characters. Considering her status as CNN’s Senior Editor of Mideast Affairs, it was perhaps too much of an oversight. And as a result, she was fired. “At this point,” said Parisa Khosravi, CNN’s Vice President of international newsgathering, “we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward.” Oops. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jul 2010 15:43

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Tech: TechCrunch gets on on the hilarious Woot.com AP baiting mess

  • Meanwhile, AP staffers across the Gulf region and in Washington continue to provide comprehensive coverage of the oil spill.
  • AP Director of Media Relations Paul Colford • Using the oil spill as a scapegoat for the whole faux-fight with Woot.com and TechCrunch. TechCrunch, thank God, has a little bit of fun with the whole thing, posting a whole AP story on their site just to be stupid and childish. To which, we say, why the heck not! It’s AP who needs to change, not TechCrunch. One of the best TechCrunch posts in months. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jul 2010 11:57

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World: Snaps: Fox News completely ignoring the Climategate findings

  • Reuters is also greatly underplaying the story at the very bottom of their front page. But at least they’re playing it, unlike Fox News, which spilled a lot of ink on it when it first broke. It’s only on their world page as a result of partner member The Wall Street Journal running a story about it (and them linking to it at the very bottom of the page). While not the biggest story on the digest, the initial controversy around Climategate – often a punching bag for skeptics of climate change – makes it a pretty important story to have something about. Other sites are covering it like so:
  • CNN: Lead storyIn a lot of ways, the controversy around climate change is stronger in the U.S. than elsewhere in the world, so big play here makes sense.
  • Guardian: Lead StoryNo individual source owned the Climategate story as much as The Guardian did, so it’s not surprising to see them giving it big play.

 


  • Google news: A lead itemWhile the Russian spy swap and the NBA’s free agency craziness are ahead of it, Google’s algorithms are giving it decent play.
  • BBC: Secondary storyDespite the fact that the controversy is based around a British university, the BBC chose to play up Nicolas Sarkozy instead.

 

  • New York Times: DownpageWhile given decent play, it’s not the site’s lead story this morning. They went with the Russian spy-trading story instead.
  • MSNBC: DownpageYou have to go nearly halfway down the page to see the site covering this at all, which is pretty strange if you ask us.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jul 2010 11:13

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Offbeat: Austin Sendek: Hella close to making “hella” an official math term

Let’s face it. Nobody was using 10 to the 27th power anyway, so why not give it to an annoying Northern California slang term? We’re with Austin. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jul 2010 10:52

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Tech: Goatse Security dude: I’ve been denied a lawyer in iPad case

  • He also points out a potentially hypocritical carrying-out of the law. What’s the difference between a hacker using a public Web site to scrape information about iPad users for the purposes of publicizing and fixing a bug, and a law firm that does the same thing to scrape data about a health insurer? The hacker gets raided, arrested and denied a public attorney; the law firm isn’t dinged much at all. So is the case of Andrew “weev” Auernheimer, who broke a gag order on his case to tell you all this. Now, we’re not geniuses here, but we’re guessing social security numbers and other private data are way worse than anything “weev” took (and subsequently deleted). source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

07 Jul 2010 10:23

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Politics: Twitter thinks this whole Climategate mess is a gas

Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jul 2010 10:15

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World: “Climategate” scientists not unethical, just not very open

  • We went through this very carefully and we concluded that these behaviors did not damage our judgment of the integrity, the honesty, the rigor with which they had operated as scientists.
  • “Climategate” investigator Muir Russell • Presenting his findings on scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. While the 160-page report largely vindicates their research, it does reveal that they didn’t use “the proper degree of openness” with public information requests. Which one might say led to the whole “see! we knew they were lying to us!” mess you see today. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

07 Jul 2010 09:50

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World: Nicolas Sarcozy + L’Oreal + illegal donations = A powdery mess

How many world leaders could conceivably find themselves in a ethics scandal with a cosmetics heiress? Just one. Our boy Nick Sarcozy. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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