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

19 May 2011 16:26

tags

Politics: Jon Stewart dominates Bill O’Reilly’s own poll

  • Credit where credit is due: The O’Reilly Factor’s viewer polls always have a big stamp on the bottom that says “NOT A SCIENTIFIC POLL,” and that’s as true now as it was when we didn’t find their outcomes so amusing. That said, such a disclaimer also means O’Reilly and his people probably didn’t have to unleash this dispiriting (for him) result to the world. Just look at that map! Jon Stewart is one of the most convincing and talented talkers in the public eye, and it’s his willingness to have nuanced yet incisive debate with his ideological opposites that make him so. source

11 May 2011 16:18

tags

Politics: Sarah Palin, Common, and the White House have a tussle

  • This week in objections: There’s been a controversy swirling over the White House’s decision to invite rapper Common (his real name is Lonnie Rashid Lynn) to a poetry event. The outcry, spearheaded by Sarah Palin, centers rather predictably around his lyrics through the years, some of which people might find offensive (the New Jersey State Police union, for example, is upset about this). Here’s the reality: Michelle Obama probably likes Common, mostly known for his socially-conscious rapping and this terrible album, and she wants him to attend. How many of us can honestly say if somebody else found an artist we enjoyed controversial, we’d like the art less? It’s certainly rich coming from Sarah Palin, whose ethics on controversial speech are plainly situational — it places lyrics above actions, which seems backwards to us. source

11 May 2011 11:22

tags

Politics: Lame: Rapper Common now in the same boat as William Ayers

  • If this was somebody who used the same type of rhetoric about violence against President Obama I would be against it. . . . This is inappropriate for a President and he goes back to his radical roots again and again and again. Ayers, Wright, Pfleger.
  • Sean Hannity • Saying a bunch of stupid crap about how Common (a pro-Obama rapper) is a bad influence and shouldn’t visit the White House and stuff. We don’t have much to add to this, other than this: SHUT UP YOU AREN’T A RAP FAN AND YOU PROBABLY DIDN’T KNOW WHO THIS GUY WAS UNTIL YOU WERE HANDED A CUE CARD WITH HIS NAME ON IT BEFORE THE SEGMENT. Also, you can’t criticize Common’s poetic license until you take back this approval of Ted Nugent’s non-poetic license, brah. source

03 May 2009 11:30

tags

U.S., World: Terrorists’ technology of choice, post-9/11: Hotmail

  • the plea Ali al-Marri, in a guilty-plea agreement last week, admitted in court that al-Qaeda mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed planned to use common tools to plot terrorist attacks in the U.S.
  • the tools Beyond Hotmail, the easily-available tools that al-Qaeda used included prepaid calling cards, public phones, computer search engines, and simplistic codes used to cover their tracks. source