“What we need is Britney Spears to stay home instead of traipsing all over town. That would solve the problem. We don’t need additional laws…. I’ve got laws coming out my ears to deal with this issue. What you have is several young women in this town and several young men basically making fools of themselves and tying up not only my resources but the resources of the media that would do better covering legitimate stories instead of a bunch of airheads running around out there… . Quite clearly some of these characters so favored by the paparazzi are clearly […]
COMING ATTRACTION: An Exclusive Interview With I Am Trying To Break Your Heart Director Sam Jones
In honor of you-know-who playing the Tower on Saturday we will be running an in-depth Q&A with Sam Jones, the director of I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. Sam is probably better known for his photography — you have seen his work, believe me. He recently published Here And Now (Harper Collins), a collection of his stunning celebrity portraiture, with forward by George Clooney. Speaking of which, Sam shot Clooney on Monday for this week’s TIME cover story. Small world.
HOT DOCUMENT: A Warning From Anonymous
DEAR PHAWKER, Just got back from working (video & sucking dick for dollars) at a hacker’s convention in DC. And Elvis, I’m scared. It was a whole lot less comic-book-guy than I expected. These guys are smart, scary and could speak for hours without me understanding one word. They had video screen captures of sites offering complete identities, credit cards, bank accounts… the “fullz,” at 50 for $20. They laughed at how easy it was to steal a complete identity – they did it live and showed real identities. A lot of Tom Cruise types with strange faraway looks. Theta […]
POTUS: ‘U Can’t Say Dallas Don’t Luv U, Mr. Obama’
STAR-TELEGRAM: DALLAS — Security details at Barack Obama’s rally Wednesday stopped screening people for weapons at the front gates more than an hour before the Democratic presidential candidate took the stage at Reunion Arena. The order to put down the metal detectors and stop checking purses and laptop bags came as a surprise to several Dallas police officers who said they believed it was a lapse in security. Dallas Deputy Police Chief T.W. Lawrence, head of the Police Department’s homeland security and special operations divisions, said the order — apparently made by the U.S. Secret Service — was meant to […]
NEWS CLUES: ‘Painfully Localized’ Edition
THIS JUST IN: Uncle Miltie Jury Deadlocked, Could Mistrial INQUIRER: The federal jury considering fraud and tax charges against T. Milton Street ended a second full day of deliberations telling the judge they were deadlocked on seven charges. But U.S. District Judge Legrome D. Davis did not declare a mistrial, telling the 12 jurors he and the defense and government lawyers had decided that “you need to continue discussing the case.” At that point, shortly before 4 p.m., the jury decided to stop deliberations for the day and return tomorrow to resume their review at the federal courthouse in Center […]
WORTH REPEATING: The Trouble With Hillary
THE POLITICO: Hillary Rodham Clinton started the year flush with cash, but by the beginning of this month, she’d blazed through most of it — spending $11 million on ads, $3.8 million on messaging guru Mark Penn and $1,300 at Dunkin’ Donuts, just to name a few expenditures — leaving her campaign woefully unprepared for an extended battle for the Democratic presidential nomination. About $15 million — or more than half of the New York senator’s January spending — went to a cadre of high-priced consultants. Though much of the cash went through the campaign media buyer for ad time, […]
COMING ATTRACTION: An Exclusive Interview With I Am Trying To Break Your Heart Director Sam Jones
In honor of you-know-who playing the Tower on Saturday we will be running an in-depth Q&A with Sam Jones, the director of I Am Trying To Break Your Heart. Sam is probably better known for his commercial photography — you have seen his work, believe me. He recently published Here And Now (Harper Collins), a collection of his stunning celebrity portraiture, with forward by George Clooney. UPDATE: Sam shot Clooney for this week’s TIME cover story
PAUL GREEN SCHOOL OF ROCK W/ GIBBY HAYNES
“I Saw An X-Ray Of Girl Passing Gas” live at the Trocadero, Saturday night.
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR The cease-fire that’s kept Iraq’s Shiite militias in check for months is in danger of unraveling. At the same time, there’s a growing restlessness among some of the Sunni militias backed by the United States in the fight against al-Qaida in Iraq. Patrick Cockburn, author and Iraq correspondent for The Independent in London, joins Fresh Air to discuss what he sees as a tenuous calm in Iraq. Cockburn is author of The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq. Before the 2003 invasion, he sneaked into the country to watch firsthand the defeat of the Iraqi military. The Occupation […]
COLLATERAL: Why The Telecom Lobby Prefers Blondes
NEW YORK TIMES: Senator John McCain said Thursday that an article in The New York Times about his close ties to a woman lobbyist was untrue, that he had no romantic relationship with the lobbyist and that he had no confrontations in 1999 with worried staff members who told him to stay away from her. Mr. McCain also said he knew nothing about confrontations that the newspaper described between Mr. McCain and staff members who were worried that the senator’s relationship with Ms. Iseman would jeopardize his career. “I don’t know if it happened at their level, it certainly didn’t […]
CONFETTI BETTY: Saint John Gets His Monica On
BY AMY Z. QUINN Cindy McCain totally just had a Hillary Clinton moment. There she was, wearing that same expression, eyes locked on her husband as he denied having an affair with a different (though, not dissimilar-looking?) blond and trashing those who would besmirch his honor, in this case, The New York Times. We’ve seen that look before, just as we’ve all watched this entire drama before, even down to the part where his staff tries to make the woman buzz off. Monica Lewinsky was shipped over to the Pentagon, supposedly Vicki Iseman got a stern talking-to at Union Station. […]
Mystery Plague Wiping Out Northeastern Bat Population
BOSTON GLOBE: A mysterious and deadly sickness that has killed off thousands of bats in New York has now been discovered in two Western Massachusetts mines. Researchers say they expect to find more affected wintering bat populations as they lead expeditions into dark caves and mines in the Northeast over coming weeks. They predict that hundreds of thousands of the furry creatures will be wiped out before the end of winter. The illness – known as white nose syndrome, because some afflicted bats have a white fungus on their noses – does not appear to pose any risk to people, […]
BREAKING: NYT Drops Blonde Bombshell On McCain
WASHINGTON — Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers. A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity. When news organizations reported that […]