Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on TwitterBe a Facebook FanTumble us!

25 Aug 2010 14:30

tags

Culture: Vanity Fair really thinks you should see “Scott Pilgrim” NOW

  • So, if the movies have been so bad—if, as we complain, there’s nothing good playing—why is a good movie having such a hard time finding an audience?
  • Vanity Fair writer John Lopez • Making an over-the-top plea for people to go see “Scott Pilgrim” in the theater. And he’s absolutely right. It’s a great movie that got the budget it deserved and a and it’s doing miserable at the box office. “Scott Pilgrim was a risk, a gamble, a leap of faith,” Lopez writes. “The sad-but-true fact is that studios and their corporate parents just don’t know how to do that, and when they do, you need to smack them upside the head with box-office success for them to understand the lesson.” source

25 Aug 2010 10:47

tags

World: Worst person ever drops a cat in a trash can for no reason

  • Hey, a kitty! Aww, you’re so cute. But I’m a completely evil human being, so I’m going to drop you in this trash can, because I don’t think there’s a video camera watching me. Oops. source

25 Aug 2010 10:39

tags

World: Iraq hit by a huge spate of violence in wake of U.S. troops leaving

  • 45+ people killed in bombings that shook seven Iraqi cities source

25 Aug 2010 10:32

tags

World: Jimmy Carter’s in North Korea, following in Bill Clinton’s footsteps

Something tells us that Jimmy Carter is not the master negotiator that Bill Clinton was when he went to North Korea last year. source

25 Aug 2010 10:24

tags

Biz: New home sales are straight-up in the crapper, too, guys

  • 12% the decline in new home sales in July, which is craptastic and as bad as yesterday’s number
  • 276,000 the annual rate in units – the lowest level since the data series started way back in 1963 source

25 Aug 2010 10:17

tags

U.S.: Alaska Senate race: Sarah Palin’s candidate could beat incumbent

  • 1,960 Joe Miller’s current lead over Lisa Murkowski source

25 Aug 2010 10:09

tags

Politics: David Paterson finally decided to be a governor on the mosque issue

  • People can’t hear each other anymore. I find it heart-wrenching. I hate to see New Yorkers squaring off against each other.
  • New York Gov. David Paterson • Taking time off from making incredibly embarrassing gaffes to make some pretty smart statements about the Park51 community center, or the “Ground Zero Mosque.” In related news, a group of New Yorkers, including some 9/11 victims’ families, plan to announce the launch of pro-tolerance group New York Neighbors for American Values. And the Park51 organizers still don’t wanna move. source
 

25 Aug 2010 00:37

tags

Politics: J.D. Hayworth no match for comeback king John McCain

  • hypothesis J.D. Hayworth, sensing weakness in John McCain’s abilities after he ran for president, thought Arizona could use a new senator.
  • reality Despite Hayworth’s stronger conservative credentials, McCain spent a lot of money and came out on top tonight. source
  • » Oh yeah … McCain has an election in November, but this will likely be a formality. See, McCain lives in Arizona, a state that leans far enough to the right that it allowed a crazy immigration law to take effect. There’s no way the’re electing a Democrat to the Senate.
  • » Other races: The other key state, Florida, was half-boom, half-bust for big-spending outsiders. While Democratic senate candidate Kendrick Meek easily won his race over Jeff Greene (a guy who’s a billionaire and made a lot of money off the housing market bust), multi-millionaire Rick Scott toppled Attorney General Bill McCollum in the GOP gubernatorial primart.

24 Aug 2010 21:49

tags

24 Aug 2010 21:30

tags

U.S.: Why did the U.S. decide not to vaccinate hens from salmonella?

  • The U.S. chose not to force hens to get vaccinated for Salmonella. They claimed there wasn’t enough evidence that it did anything. (And it wouldn’t raise costs much; it’d cost less than a penny per dozen eggs.) With the very large egg-tainting problem in the U.S., it’s probably good to look at what happened after Britain mandated hen vaccinations:
  • 14,771the number of cases in England and Wales caused by the most common strain of salmonella in 1997, the year a new hen vaccine was tested by the country’s farmers
  • 581the number of cases in England and Wales last year, a decrease of 96 percent; the hen vaccine, which has been in use since 1998, has helped lead to yearly declines source
  • » So why didn’t they? Well, the FDA, while it claims that it looked at the vaccine seriously, said that there were significant differences between the U.S. version of the vaccine and the British one. The vaccine-maker, however, says that the differences were minor and the drugs were equally effective. Meanwhile, the current recall is at around 550 million eggs.