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

13 Apr 2010 22:00

tags

Politics: John McCain knows the guy who made “Demon Sheep”

  • Well, that’s a clever twist on the whole campaign ad. An ad by the other side, mocking stuff the one guy said. It was clearly made with no money and liberally infringes on copyright. But it might be just what McCain needs to stay in the race.

13 Apr 2010 21:25

tags

Politics: Eric Massa loved his interns, but they didn’t love him back

  • It took a year of complaints to get Congress on Massa. So, let’s say you’re an employer, and you have a middle manager who keeps hitting on his interns and low-level staffers. He goes out of his way to puts them in weird situations. He says inappropriate things to them. And he talks a little salty at work. So, what do you do? If you’re senior Democratic staff, you keep it quiet for a year and let it blow up on Glenn Beck. Heck of a job, Brownie. source

13 Apr 2010 20:50

tags

Politics: World leaders just can’t get enough of Barack Obama!

  • Jeez, can you make it any less obvious you’re talking about Bush? The Atlantic Wire notes that, despite Obama’s 47 percent approval rating in the States (his lowest point ever), world leaders can’t seem to get enough of him. Russian president Medvedev puts it this way: “He’s very comfortable partner, it’s very interesting to be with him.” Does Michelle know? source

13 Apr 2010 10:30

tags

Politics: Cha-ching! Sarah Palin makes a lot of money as a free agent

  • $125,000
    yearly
    amount Sarah Palin made from her gig as Alaska governor
  • $12
    million
    amount Palin’s made since she quit that job last year source

12 Apr 2010 21:18

tags

Politics: Is Hillary Clinton REALLY a Supreme Court candidate?

  • NO Orrin Hatch was just pulling
    our collective leg source

12 Apr 2010 11:01

tags

Politics: Bizarro hippie Michele Bachmann calls herself Nostradamus

  • Oh, and she says 51 percent of the economy is owned by the federal government. Ever hear a claim so insane that there’s simply no way it’s actually true? Well, Rep. Michele Bachmann, a favorite of the bizarro hippie movement, makes a straight-faced claim that the more than half of the economy is nationalized thanks to Obama. Chris Wallace does rebut at least one of her claims (Bush, not Obama, implemented most of the policies she’s criticizing), but it doesn’t go far enough. As The Raw Story points out, one thing Obama hasn’t done is nationalize banks. source

12 Apr 2010 10:10

tags

Politics: The professional god-like newspaper critic: A dying art form?

  • We’re all critics. If I were starting Entertainment Weekly today, it wouldn’t be a magazine, and it likely wouldn’t hire critics.
  • Entertainment Weekly founder (and iPad hatah) Jeff Jarvis • Regarding the state of criticdom. With a much wider variety of voices and the decline of the newspaper industry, the importance of movie, music, food and book critics is quickly declining, and some wonder if the nuance of the art will go away. “If Roger Ebert says it, does it carry value? Yes,” Jarvis notes. “But how many Roger Eberts are out there, and how many do we need?” Personally, we like Roger, but Metacritic gives a wider range. source
 

12 Apr 2010 09:10

tags

Politics: This should wake you up: Hillary Clinton, Supreme Court nominee?

  • Whoa, what did he just say? Our boy Orrin Hatch was on The Today Show this morning and dropped this bombshell. Hillary Clinton is a possibility for Supreme Court justice. If this is true, it’d be a major change for the court, because everyone knows Hillary and she’d already come with a long history. Oh, and she just ran for president a year or two ago.

11 Apr 2010 23:43

tags

Politics: Max Headroom: Newser’s Michael Wolff misses the point of short

  • We’ve been following the Newser/the wrap tiff with great interest. Because we find the whole thing silly. Today, the conflict took a turn for the insane, with poor Howard Kurtz right in the middle. As fellow ShortFormers, we agree with Michael Wolff’s ideals, but the problem lies with his execution. There’s no respect for the content. (Although we feel Sharon Waxman’s rules of the road are a bit extreme.)

  • the conflict First off, we want to encourage everyone to go to Mediaite for more context. (Their clips are great. Their embeds, not so much. Please fix this, guys. We love you!) Anyway, it’s clear what’s happening here. Waxman asks for something reasonable (fair attribution that encourages further reading on her site). Wolff bites her head off. Ouch!

  • Newser‘s Goals Recently, Wolff was trying to make his arguments about the shortening of content on GRITtv, and on their face, we totally agree with them. Problem is, it seems like he’s done this in a self-serving way. Look, Michael, we like short, too, but respect the sites you’re pulling from. In the long term, this lack of respect only hurts you.

  • The Wrap‘s goals This promotional video made near the time of The Wrap’s launch shows similarly lofty goals for Waxman’s brand of entertainment journalism. Seems to us there’s room for both Waxman’s ideas and Wolff’s. The problem, it seems to us, is that Newser seems to lack respect for Waxman’s work. Yo, Michael – make deals, not enemies.

11 Apr 2010 12:16

tags

Politics: SNL reimagines Sarah Palin as Oprah, the network

  • If Sarah Palin had a cable network like this SNL performance suggests, it’d be great, because then we could completely avoid watching her.