Read a little. Learn a lot. • Tightly-written news, views and stuff • Follow us on Twitter • Be a Facebook Fan • Tumble us!

24 Jul 2010 03:21

tags

Politics: Tea Party Express ditches Mark Williams over really misguided idea

  • Dumb move by mark williams In response to the NAACP’s chiding of the Tea Party, Tea Party Express leader Mark WIlliams wrote a blog post in the guise of a slave pretending to thank Abraham Lincoln for slavery. He called it satire. It was universally criticized, even by his own side.
  • Smart move by mark williams Realizing that the post was really dumb and hurt the Modern Tea Party movement as a whole, Williams resigned from the Tea Party Express. He says he’ll still remain part of the movement, but not hog the spotlight as its most well-known member. It’s for the best. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 Jul 2010 10:36

tags

U.S.: BP: Whoops! We’re sorry about that crappy Photoshop, guys

  • We will replace the Photoshopped version currently on bp.com with the original image tonight. We’ve instructed our post-production team to refrain from doing this in the future.
  • BP spokesman Scott Dean • Describing the issue with the Photoshopped image that we posted about last night (and based on tweets and traffic, drew a lot of attention this morning). Dean says that there wasn’t anything outwardly sinister in the photo deception, just an ethically weak photo editor who inserted three images in spots where the screens were blank. Which doesn’t explain, you know, the fact that the photo’s meta data has a 2001 creation date. But we’ll let that one slide, because the PR guy says it wasn’t sinister. Oh yeah, our boy Charles Apple posted an update. Check it out. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

20 Jul 2010 03:01

tags

Offbeat: Mexican monkey smuggler no match for airline security

  • 18 monkeys around this dude’s freaking waist source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

27 Jun 2010 10:29

tags

Politics: What’s the deal with JournoList? And who ratted out Dave Wiegel?

  • Some respected blogger just dropped Dave Wiegel in acid. Wiegel, a blogger/reporter for The Washington Post (disclosure: we work for the Washington Post Express, a subsidiary) resigned after a colleague on Ezra Klein’s JournoList, a private e-mail network for 400 mostly-liberal bloggers to vent about stuff, leaked that Wiegel said some not-nice things about the conservative movement he covered in his job. We don’t know the inner-workings of this e-mail network. But we do know it has numerous big names we know and respect. Further thoughts:
  • A total hit jobNow, we don’t quite think it’s entirely wise to suggest that Matt Drudge “light himself on fire,” like Wiegel did, but we do think it’s completely unfair that one of his colleagues ratted him out. It screams vendetta. It screams “dirty politics,” except with bloggers.
  • Journolist: A bad ideaLook, it’s great that journalists and bloggers talk to one another, but the idea of a giant, exclusive club gives the impression of a level of elitism – and slant opportunities – that journalism simply shouldn’t have. Especially when things like this happen. Keep it open.
  • old media’s divideTrust us: The next job Wiegel gets will be at a blog, not a newspaper. Why? Because the issues that cropped up prove that large newspapers don’t necessarily understand the nature of blogging. And that’s a bad thing. Especially for their futures. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

20 May 2010 09:46

tags

World: Pakistan’s Facebook ban extends to YouTube, but not Twitter

Thanks to the high number of Mohammed depictions on the video site, they had to shut that down, too. Again, this was a good idea because … source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

28 Apr 2010 10:59

tags

World: Gordon Brown not a fan of “bigoted women,” winning elections

  • She’s just a sort of bigoted woman who says she used to be Labour.
  • British Prime Minister Gordon Brown • Regarding a woman she met when he was out with the commoners today. Eight days before a major election. Too bad for him, because he was wearing a mic when he said it. Nick Clegg’s looking like a more viable option by the day, while Labour’s looking like a major fail. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

23 Apr 2010 15:00

tags

Tech: Blippy folks on credit card leak: No, really, it’s not that bad, guys

  • While it looks super-scary and certainly sucks for the 4 people who were affected (to whom we apologize and are contacting), and is embarrassing to us, it’s a lot less bad than it looks at first glance.
  • A message from Blippy • Attempting to do damage control after it turned out some credit card numbers leaked. They claim just four cards were exposed through a Google search that looked fairly scary and got spread just about everywhere. The company better hope that’s the case – it just went through a venture capital round and doesn’t need this level of controversy right now. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

20 Apr 2010 23:49

tags

Culture: Quick advice to Kal Penn on braving the streets of D.C.

  • first Don’t walk around 15th & S NW by yourself at 1:30 a.m. on a weekday. During the day that area’s OK, but at night … it’s not super-safe.
  • second You should work this robbery at gunpoint subplot into the next Harold and Kumar movie. Just a thought from us at SFB. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

18 Apr 2010 21:15

tags

Biz: Charles Schumer twist airlines’ arms on carry-on bag charges

  • 5 major air carriers won’t follow
    Spirit Airlines’ ill-advised lead source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 2 Comments • Permalink

16 Apr 2010 17:10

tags

Tech: Apple learns that blocking editorial cartoonists a dumb idea

Pulitzer winner Mark Fiore had his app rejected. Now he has a second chance. “It’s not like I had a phone number for someone at Apple. Interestingly enough, I do now.” source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
<< newer 
top tags
older >>