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05 Sep 2011 11:27

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Culture: Jerry Lewis’ absence doesn’t hurt MDA Telethon’s fundraising ability

  • $61 million the amount the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s yearly telethon made this year — the first year without Jerry Lewis as the host
  • $58.9 million the amount the annual Labor Day telethon made last year; Lewis had hosted MDA telethons in one form or another since 1952 source
  • » Drama over the big change: While Jerry Lewis had claimed that his appearance this year would be his last, he ended up not making an appearance at all, after the association appeared to fire him (or Jerry quit early) for some reason. He didn’t even make a cameo. Instead, a bunch of giant photos of Jerry’s face went up instead, and the show needed four hosts to replace the 85-year-old, one of which included an “American Idol” producer. So … the big question: Does the yearly telethon struggle from here, without Lewis at the helm?
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Sep 2011 11:05

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Politics: Obama on Irene cleanup: “We are going to meet our federal obligations”

  • As president of the United States I want to make it very clear that we are going to meet our federal obligations because we are one country. When one part of the country gets affected, whether it’s a tornado in Joplin, Missouri or a hurricane that affects that eastern seaboard, then we come together as one country and make sure that everybody gets the help that they need.
  • President Barack Obama • Speaking about the need for federal disaster funding during a visit to Irene-ravaged New Jersey yesterday. This is an issue as a result of some stuff Eric Cantor said last week, suggesting that federal funding of disaster cleanup would only happen by cutting matching funding elsewhere. We like the point The Bergen Record’s Mike Kelly makes about this: “Memo to conservatives: You make good points about the need for America to get serious about government spending. But this is not a John Wayne western, with steel-eyed gunfighters making black-and-white decisions about life and death.” Conservatives are right on a surface level on this — we need to cut spending — but get down to the nitty-gritty and it’s simply not clear-cut. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

05 Sep 2011 10:45

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U.S.: U.S. Postal Service looking more and more screwed by the day

  • bad The U.S. Postal Service could possibly miss a $5.5 billion payment set aside for retirees to help pay for future health care. It’s due Sept. 30.
  • worse That’s just the tip of the iceberg; they’re having long-term funding issues due to union contracts, restrictive laws, and the rise of e-mail.
  • worser The result is that, without Congress’ help, the Postal Service could run out of money by early next year — which could hurt the economy. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Sep 2011 16:42

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Tech: Is now the time to ditch your RSS feed? Possibly.

  • That’s what Ars Technica’s Jacqui Cheng suggests. “RSS was essentially created so that Internet users could stay up-to-date with every single posting made on a particular website,” she writes. “This was, of course, back in the day when every site on earth didn’t post 150 new stories per day, and your friend’s blog feed didn’t contain 60 cross-posted Twitter musings to crowd out the one real post per week.” We’re with her. Despite the fact that we follow a lot of news, keeping up with the grindy nature of an RSS feed is an exercise in force-feeding, and one a lot of people simply don’t have time for. In fact, just 6 percent of Internet users use RSS regularly, and somehow the other 94 percent don’t miss out on too much. We love our RSS readers, but if you choose to follow us on Twitter instead, we totally understand. Because we go months without actually checking into Google Reader, and days without checking into Pulse, because we already caught the important stuff on Twitter already. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Sep 2011 16:10

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Biz: James Murdoch turns down bonus; Rupert Murdoch takes his own

  • In light of the current controversy surrounding News of the World, I have declined the bonus that the company chose to award to me. While the financial and operating performance metrics on which the bonus decision was based are not associated with this matter, I feel that declining the bonus is the right thing to do.
  • James Murdoch • Explaining his reasons for not accepting a $6 million bonus from News Corp. in the wake of the News of the World scandal. Accepting the bonus would have increased his 2010 take-home pay by 74 percent. His dad Rupert, meanwhile, accepted a $12.5 million bonus of his own. Do you think James made the right move? And if so, should Rupert Murdoch have followed the same track? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Sep 2011 11:55

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World: Big news: Iran’s energy grid officially includes nuclear power

  • what Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant has just connected to the country’s grid for the first time, making it the first time the Middle East has produced its own nuclear power.
  • when The plant “joined the national grid” at 11:29 p.m. last night (that was 2:59 p.m. Eastern), and will have a ceremony to inaugurate the plant on September 12. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Sep 2011 11:37

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World: Guess who finally made it home to Paris? Dominique Strauss-Kahn!

Hey may not have a good reputation in his homeland anymore, and likely won’t become president in 2012, but at least he has his mansion. That’s something, right? source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Sep 2011 11:23

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World: Mitch Landrieu to New Orleans residents: “Don’t go to sleep” on Lee

  • We’re not out of the woods. Don’t go to sleep on this storm.
  • New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu • Offering a word to residents about the possible danger Tropical Storm Lee poses, particularly because it’s not a quick moving storm. With the potential for heavy rains over extended periods, the storm could test the region’s support system for the first time since Katrina brought it past the brink back in 2005. A lot of rain has fallen in the Gulf Coast region thus far. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

04 Sep 2011 10:45

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U.S.: Tropical storm update: Lee floods; Katia suddenly looks more dangerous

  • With Tropical Storm Lee proving to be a slow-moving rain-pourer over the Gulf Coast, the next storm looking to cause trouble is Hurricane Katia, whose projected path has changed much in the past day and is likely to get within shouting distance of North Carolina. While it’s still entirely possible that it’ll go back out to sea, many areas are still recovering from Irene, lending a little bit of understandable nervousness to the whole mess. We’re going to focus our coverage on Lee this morning, and hopefully, Katia proves to do little more than stir up the ocean. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

03 Sep 2011 13:50

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Tech: CurationSoft: The latest tool on the content curation block

  • We have to parse through a lot of content quickly. So do lots of other people. In an influential post we like citing, Robert Scoble once put this point into strong emphasis, calling it a “billion-dollar opportunity.” Content curation’s biggest problem is that it always takes a lot of steps, and the app that figures out how to simplify the process is going to win. We’re, specifically, the target audience for this, so we have a lot of thoughts on the matter. The closest right now is Storify, though we’ve seen a lot of competitors show up with the express purpose of wooing Robert Scoble. The latest? CurationSoft. This Adobe AIR app allows you to easily drag-and-drop content from YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, or various blogs into your browser in a platform-agnostic way, which is pretty much its best trick. (Tumblr? Google Plus? WordPress? Works the same way.) From there, we worry a little. You can only do a single search at once, which seems like a step back in the age of multi-tab Twitter clients, and the pricing seems a little off ($40 for a single-user license? For just a year?) We think the idea is good, but the execution needs polish. Would like to see where this app is a year from now. Robert Scoble’s billion-dollar opportunity is still out there, kids. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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