• In our first piece of breaking news from Newsday since our $5-a-week paywall infiltration subscription began, we’re informed that a redhead who likes science and his classmates are going to compete for some national award sponsored by Intel. The kids are up for awards of up to $100,000, which is cool. Good luck, guys, but we’re seriously spending $5 a week on this crap? How is this even remotely breaking? There’s nothing heady about it. (BTW, if you want to read the story, you’ll have to subscribe. Them’s the breaks of a paywall.) source

• When we read yesterday that Newsday had a total of 35 subscribers to its paywall-riddled Web site, we wondered how this could be. How could only 35 people who weren’t subscribed to Cablevision or the print product say, “I’m paying Newsday $5 a week for some of the best damn journalism to be found on Long Island!” So, we decided to find out why. ShortFormBlog is now Customer No. 36.

Subscription notes:

• one They don’t bill you right away or ask for your credit card. Instead, Newsday.com staff contacts you afterwards. This is stupid.
• two You have to give them your phone number. And the registration thing is written as if you live in New York state. We live in D.C., dudes.
• three Newsday gives you a huge list of ways you can receive news from them. This includes e-mail and SMS alerts. We signed up; hey, we paid for it!

Review of Newsday’s signup process:

• C- it clearly doesn’t understand how online commerce works source

• 3.9% decline in overall worldwide passenger loads in 2009
• 10.1% decline in overall worldwide cargo
  loads in 2009
• no this story has nothing to do with the Apple Tablet at all source

• We acted because the consequences of AIG failing at that time, in those circumstances, would have been catastrophic for our economy and for American families and businesses.
• Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner • In remarks prepared before a meeting in front of a House committee today. The AIG bailout, and the TARP program, have been the subject of a watchdog probe. Today’s hearing, which also features Geithner’s predecessor Henry Paulson, was called after documents from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (led by Geithner when Paulson was Treasury secretary) suggested that information was withheld from the public on the AIG bailout. source

• 51% think it’s helped bankers and investors

• 40% think it’s helped the executives
• 33% think it’s helped the low-income
• 25% think it’s helped the middle class source

• $635M the amount Cablevision paid for Newsday, the first newspaper the company’s ever owned
• three the number of months Newsday has been behind a strict $5-a-week paywall
• 35 the number of subscribers the site has; hahahahahahahah wtf these guys suck source

• 2.3 million cars, or 8 brands, now on ice for safety reasons source

• 250,000 number of people who live in the decently-sized Laredo, Texas
• zero number of bookstores the city now has; thanks Barnes & Noble source

• 50% increase in 1st-quarter sales for tablet-bound Apple source