* MEDIA: Gannett Orders Week Long Furlough Of All Employees NEW YORK TIMES: The Gannett Company, the nation’s largest newspaper publisher, said on Wednesday that it would force thousands of its employees to take a week off without pay in an effort to avoid layoffs. Gannett, which owns 85 daily newspapers across the United States including its flagship USA Today, said it could not say exactly how many people would be required to take time off, or how much money the company would save. But it said it would require unpaid leave for most of its 31,000 employees in this […]
SIZE DOES MATTER: Dork Side Of The Moon
[Click to enlarge] Sure, a case could be made that the dude who made this could have better spent his time, like, trying to kiss a girl or something. But then how the hell would we ever know that the Borg Collective Tactical Sphere from Star Trek: The Next Generation is actually smaller than the Doomsday Machine from the original Star Trek? Because, if you don’t know that, you don’t even know what you don’t know. * WEEZER: Pork & Beans (Remix) This long rumored, recently unearthed alt-version of the vid is sorta like the Year In Review for people […]
BREAKING: Missing Pilot Who Faked Death Found
CNN: Marcus Schrenker, the financial manager who officials say faked his own death in a plane crash after scamming his customers, has been found after an apparent suicide attempt, Florida and federal authorities said Tuesday. Schrenker was found at a campsite near Quincy, Florida, with “deep cuts on his wrists,” according to a statement by a Florida-based U.S. Marshals Service task force. Schrenker was bleeding profusely when about 20 officers approached his tent, said Deputy U.S. Marshal John Beeman. PREVIOUSLY: GHOST OF D.B. COOPER — On The Verge Of Financial Collapse, Man Fakes Death In Spectacular Plane Crash THE OBAMACONS: […]
NPR 4 THE DEF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006
Radiolab [HIGHLY RECOMMENDED] Why so many sperm? We turn to the animal kingdom to answer that question, which lands us on a tour of sperm battles in ducks, flying pig sperm, and promiscuous whippoorwills. We ponder the necessity of males in a world where sperm can be frozen and kept for all eternity. And we sit quietly in a stark sonic space with a widow struggling to keep some essence of her husband alive. Why So Many Sperm? Matthew Cobb takes us back to 1677, when Anton Van Leewenhoek first identified sperm and there was much talk of souls and […]
HOT DOC: Why I Can’t Stop Giving Obama My Money
[War Is Over by SHEPARD FAIREY] Dear Jonathan, To celebrate Barack Obama’s historic inauguration, graphic artist Shepard Fairey has created an unforgettable limited edition poster. Make a donation of $20 or more to receive your official inauguration poster. This will be the most open and accessible Inaugural in our nation’s history. And thanks to supporters like you, it’s happening without donations from Washington lobbyists or big corporations. Celebrate this historic moment and our first step toward change. Get your limited edition Shepard Fairey poster today. Thank you for your support, The Presidential Inaugural Committee P.S. — Shepard Fairey also designed […]
Videotape The Israeli Army Doesn’t Want You To See
Facts4idfnadesk: From the CBC Website * THEY WOULD VASTLY PREFER YOU TO PAY ATTENTION TO THIS FOOL INSTEAD: SDEROT, Israel — Joe the Plumber has set aside his wrenches to become a rookie war correspondent, covering Israel’s side of its two-week-old military offensive in Gaza. The Ohio man, who rocketed to fame during the U.S. presidential campaign for asking Barack Obama about his tax plan, was in the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Sunday to tell readers of the conservative pjtv.com Web site about the rockets that rain down from the neighboring Gaza Strip. The people of Sderot “can’t […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR After 44 years as a newspaperman, former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie Jr. is making his debut as a fiction writer. His new novel, The Rules of The Game, features an investigative reporter on the beat of a hotly contested presidential election. Downie joined the Post as an summer intern in 1964, and retired in Sept. 2008 after serving 17 years as the paper’s executive editor. In his last year as editor, the paper won six Pulitzer Prizes for work done in 2007 — the most it had ever earned in one year. ALSO, John Yemma, the […]
UNCOOL: Obama Puts Record Company Pitbulls In Charge Of Copyright And File Sharing Regulation
CNET: As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama won applause from legal adversaries of the recording industry. Stanford law professor Larry Lessig, the doyen of the “free culture” movement, endorsed the Illinois senator, as did Google CEO Eric Schmidt and even the Pirate Party. That was then. As president-elect, one of Obama’s first tech-related decisions has been to select the Recording Industry Association of America’s favorite lawyer to be the third in command at the Justice Department. And Obama’s pick as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position, is the lawyer who oversaw the defense of the Copyright Term Extension […]
PAPERBOY: Special ‘Gamble & Bluff’ Edition
BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer […]
EYELESS IN GAZA: Israel Maintains Media Blackout
[Photo Source: BOSTON GLOBE] NEW YORK TIMES: And so for an 11th day of Israel’s war in Gaza, the several hundred journalists here to cover it waited in clusters away from direct contact with any fighting or Palestinian suffering, but with full access to Israeli political and military commentators eager to show them around southern Israel, where Hamas rockets have been terrorizing civilians. A slew of private groups financed mostly by Americans are helping guide the press around Israel. Like all wars, this one is partly about public relations. But unlike any war in Israel’s history, in this one the […]
Obama Taps CNN’s Sanjay Gupta For Surgeon General
CNN: The Obama transition team approached Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s chief medical correspondent, about becoming U.S. surgeon general, according to sources inside the transition and at CNN. Gupta was in Chicago, Illinois, in November to meet with President-elect Barack Obama on the matter, sources said. Gupta has declined comment. The transition team is impressed with the combination of Gupta’s past government experience, as a White House fellow in 1997 and a special adviser to then-first lady Hillary Clinton, along with his medical career as a neurosurgeon and his communication skills, the transition source said. Gupta is a member of the […]
UNRELIABLE SOURCES: Did NBC Ban Ann Coulter?
DRUDGE: The nation’s top selling conservative author has been banned from appearing on NBC, insiders tell the DRUDGE REPORT. Banned for life! “We are just not going to have her on any more,” a top network source explains… MORE UPDATE: UNDER PRESSURE, NBC EXECS RE-THINK COULTER BOOKINGS… DEVELOPING… TV NEWSER: Late today, NBC News denied the story with this statement: “We’ve had Ann Coulter on ‘Today’ many times, but because of the news in Washington and the Middle East, we decided to cancel her appearance tomorrow. Understanding the media as well as she does, we are sure she knows this […]