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06 Sep 2010 23:46

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Politics: Why our boy Adam Penenberg is a man amongst journalists

  • 1998Penenberg catches Stephen Glass, then a hotshot at The New Republic, fabricating a story. He legitimizes online journalism in the process.
  • 2003Penenberg’s unprecedented catch gets new appreciation in the wake of the Jayson Blair saga. Steve Zahn plays him in the excellent movie about Glass.
  • 2010 Frustrated that nobody is covering it, Penenberg takes to Twitter and tweets about a $131 million judgment against Ford. He’s hailed as an innovator again. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 23:21

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Offbeat: Dude climbs giant tower in San Francisco just ‘cuz

  • How’d you spend your Labor Day? Just hanging out? If so, you did the same thing that this guy did. Kinda. You also probably didn’t get arrested. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 23:03

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Politics: A couple New York Times liberals gang up on Obama

  • it’s one thing when the right rips Obama. It’s another thing entirely when he’s feeling the hurt from New York Times liberal columnists who should have his back, but don’t. Paul Krugman went so far as to say “Obama has had no vision.” Ouch. Here’s what we got a taste of yesterday on ABC’s “This Week”:
  • “DJ Pauly D” Krugman “What is Obama’s philosophy of government? He wobbles between sounding kind of like a liberal. Then he says, well, the conservatives have some points, too. He concedes the message.”
  • “Tommy Bahama” Friedman“Look, I’m for more health care. I’m glad we’ve extended it to more Americans. But the fact is, there is a real, I think, argument for the case that Obama completely over-read his mandate when he came in.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 20:52

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Tech: Mark Hurd rises from the tech-exec ashes like a phoenix

  • downfall Mark Hurd had a relationship with an underling and that led to his firing from HP. The circumstances raised eyebrows.
  • rise Hurd showed up at Oracle this week as their new co-president, just in time to screw Google over with that Java lawsuit. source
  • » He’s got a powerful backer, too: Last month, Larry Ellison, Oracle’s CEO, referred to Hurd’s ouster as “the worst personnel decision since the idiots on the Apple board fired Steve Jobs many years ago.” So, to prove it, he hired Hurd.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 20:37

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Biz: No co-pilot? Meet the airline CEO who would suggest that

Michael O’Leary, Ryanair’s CEO, is the kind of guy who likes to skip on the somewhat essentials. The center image says it all. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 20:31

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World: WikiLeaks leaders to Julian Assange: Step down, brah

  • I am not angry with Julian, but this is a situation that has clearly gotten out of hand. These personal matters should have nothing to do with WikiLeaks. I have strongly urged him to focus on the legalities that he’s dealing with and let some other people carry the torch.
  • Wikileaks organizer Birgitta Jonsdottir • Offering some insight into the Wikieaks organization’s stance on their leader. Short answer: They want him out, and have been pushing him to quit for two weeks. Jonsdottir, who also serves in Iceland’s parliament, has a pretty solid sum-up of the public face of Wikileaks at the end of this Daily Beast article: “Julian is brilliant in many ways, but he doesn’t have very good social skills. And he’s a classic Aussie in the sense that he’s a bit of a male chauvinist.” Ahahahaha, oh boy. TechCrunch suggests that Assange’s personal problems don’t make him a good leader. Hm. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 12:16

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U.S.: Tea is not a popular party, according to this new poll

  • 44% The Democratic Party’s approval rating
  • 45% The Republican Party’s approval rating
  • 36% The Tea Party’s approval rating source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 1 Comment • Permalink
 

06 Sep 2010 11:28

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Biz: The Washington Times, the victim of a family disagreement?

  • one day, the money stopped flowing. The Washington Times, the once-prominent conservative newspaper funded by the Unification Church, lost a key money flow one week in July 2009, leading to massive layoffs and a precipitous decline of the paper. It turns out that it was caught in the middle of a huge family struggle between its owners, the Moonies. Some numbers:
  • $2billion lost by the Moonie-run paper since it was founded
  • 87,000 the newspaper’s already-declining circulation two years ago
  • 40,000 the newspaper’s circulation now; it’s had major cutbacks of late
  • » The family strife: The Washington Times is at the center of a power struggle between the family of Unification Church leader Rev. Sun Myung Moon, who’s 89 years old and isn’t long for this world. Other Moon-run businesses aren’t doing so hot either. Moon’s son, Preston, who isn’t as doggedly conservative as his dad was (he was, for example, against the Iraq War), apparently steered the paper in a direction one of his brothers didn’t like, causing the church’s money to stop flowing to the paper. They couldn’t pay key bills, including those for internet access and staffer health insurance. Now the paper may return to into the senior Moon’s hands in a $1-plus-debt buyback, but the final result isn’t so clear. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 10:54

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Biz: Housing market: Would a correction help homeowners?

  • Housing needs to go back to reasonable levels. If we keep trying to stimulate the market, that’s the definition of insanity.
  • George Mason University real estate finance professor Anthony B. Sanders • Suggesting we let the housing market go to hell so it can correct itself. It’s a somewhat unique argument, but considering the way that overdevelopment and overbuilding has defined the real estate market of the last decade. So, the debate as it currently stands: Does the Obama administration keep trying to stimulate growth in the housing market, or does it focus less on devlopment and more on ensuring the value of the investments that millions of homeowners have already made? A tough answer, but we think the latter sounds like a good idea. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

06 Sep 2010 10:44

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Politics: Tony Blair decides that one tense book-signing is enough

Remember what happened in Dublin the other day, guys? Well, we’re not letting that happen in London! Shut it down! source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
 
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