CNN MONEY: Satellite radio subscriber growth is flat, the likely victim of a slowing U.S. economy and waning interest in the once-novel medium. Meanwhile cash is running dry. Last month, citing heavy debt costs, a tightening credit market and sluggish car sales, Goldman Sachs analyst Mark Wienkes slashed his stock price targets for Sirius and XM, raising the prospects that there may be a financial black hole ahead for the combined company. If so, analysts expect Sirius-XM to take a hard look at programming costs, either by waiting until existing contracts expire or using the onset of a financial crisis […]
AD BUST: City Cracks Down On Malt ‘Murketing’
NBC10: Philadelphia is famous for its mural arts program. But some groups said that some specific murals need to be scrubbed out. Philly’s “Mural Arts Program” has painted 2,700 murals. But while most of the murals are about life, energy and color, some murals in Fishtown are all about malt liquor, Colt 45. Pabst Beer paid local businesses for some of their wall space. But the city said the quasi-murals are illegal because a permit is needed. NBC 10 called Pabst and they are not commenting on the issue. The city is still trying to see if any local advertising […]
JC PENNEY: I Has Sex Tape?
GAWKER: That JC Penney commercial, which featured two teens practicing for a naked romp in the basement? The one that won a prize at the Cannes Lions Awards this weekend and spread quickly on the Web yesterday? It was an unauthorized fake, and executives at the department store are royally pissed. “It’s obviously inappropriate and nothing we would ever condone,” Penney’s chief marketing officer told the Wall Street Journal. “We’re very disappointed that our logo and brand position were used in that way.” Thus began the blame game over who unleashed this mutant sorta-sex tape, one that will seem oh-so-familiar […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A Pregnancy Pact With The Truth
Pregger Teen Denies Pregnancy Pact, Calls 17 Pregnant Friends A ‘Coincidence’ One of the pregnant teenage girls at a Massachusetts high school denied that 17 students had entered a pact in an effort to get pregnant and called the high rate of pregnancies “unlucky” and a “coincidence.” “There was definitely no pact,” Lindsey Oliver, 17, [NOT pictured] who became pregnant when she was a junior, told ABC’s “Good Morning America” today. “There was a group of girls already pregnant that decided they were going to help each other to finish school and raise their kids together. I think it was […]
GAMBLOR: No News Is Good News
DAILY NEWS: Lawyers for the Daily News and the Inquirer are seeking to block efforts to force 10 reporters to testify about their sources in the probe into now-indicted slots parlor owner Louis DeNaples. A lawyer for the papers’ owner said that the subpoenas issued recently to the papers and the reporters – as well as several other Pennsylvania journalists – by lawyers for DeNaples “were really designed to harass members of the media.” “We believe that the subpoenas really are an attempt to intimidate the press and to deter the reporters from writing articles about the defendant that they […]
SHOOTING HORSES: Jersey Jerk Cops To Killing ‘Cutie’
INQUIRER: A Lindenwold man pleaded guilty today to shooting a rodeo horse with a bow and arrow in Franklin Township, Gloucester County, then leaving it to bleed to death in a field near its owner’s home. Jason Allen, 20, was hunting for deer with two friends in January 2007 when they came across “Cutie,” [NOT pictured, left] he told a Gloucester County Superior Court judge. The steel-tipped arrow Allen fired struck the show horse, owned by a Tuckahoe Road family. Allen, along with Kamren Johnston, 25, and Mark A. Simmerman, 21, were arrested a month later and charged with multiple […]
RIP: Sage Funnyman George Carlin Dead At 71
REUTERS: Comedian George Carlin, a counter-culture hero famed for his routines about drugs and dirty words, died of heart failure at a Los Angeles-area hospital on Sunday, a spokesman said. He was 71. Carlin, who had a history of heart problems, died at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica about 6 p.m. PDT (9 p.m. EDT) after being admitted earlier in the afternoon for chest pains, spokesman Jeff Abraham told Reuters. Known for his edgy, provocative material, Carlin achieved status as an anti-Establishment icon in the 1970s with stand-up bits full of drug references and a routine about seven […]
TECKNO: Reason #4,478 Why Microsoft Sucks
CNET: Which is the world’s fastest browser? According to Zimbra, Safari runs fastest, though it didn’t beat out Firefox by much. Both Safari and Firefox were roughly twice as fast as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 7. Of course, Zimbra was testing for how these browsers perform with the Zimbra web application. Your mileage may vary with other applications. In fact, I’d love to see a wide range of tests for different sites and applications. Who’s next? As an aside, I continue to be impressed at how Zimbra treats non-Microsoft platforms as first-class citizens (along with Microsoft). Firefox is the same way. […]
CONFEDERACY OF WHORES: Congress Sells Out Constitution & American People To Telecom Lobbyists
[CLICK TO ENLARGE] NEW YORK TIMES: After months of wrangling, Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress struck a deal on Thursday to overhaul the rules on the government’s wiretapping powers and provide what amounts to legal immunity to the phone companies that took part in President Bush’s program of eavesdropping without warrants after the Sept. 11 attacks. The deal, expanding the government’s powers to spy on terrorism suspects in some major respects, would strengthen the ability of intelligence officials to eavesdrop on foreign targets. It would also allow them to conduct emergency wiretaps without court orders on American targets for […]
NEWS CLUES: Like A ‘Terrorist Fist Jab’ Of Truth
KNIVES OUT: Alycia Lane Sues KYW’s Ass A fired Philadelphia newscaster sued her former employer Thursday, alleging that the television station maliciously damaged her reputation and contributed to a number of her embarrassing off-camera episodes. Alycia Lane sued KYW-TV in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, alleging the station and its management deliberately got her personal life into the news in order to get free publicity. She is seeking unspecified damages. Lane was fired in January, a month after being arrested in New York City following a late-night scuffle with plainclothes police. In her lawsuit, she said she believed she was witnessing […]
BE VERY AFRAID: John McCain Creeps Out SNL
Not since Eric Roberts in Star 80 have we been this creeped-the-fuck-out by an actor’s performance. John McCain is either an INCREDIBLE thespian or the man has a very, very dark side. From 2002. You be the judge.
BY POPULAR DEMAND: Men Who Wear Speedos
via SCRAPPLE TV RELATED: WTF Is Darren Finizio?
MEOW MIX: Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner!
Last night’s Anderson Cooper 360 featured a lively, if baffling, panel discussion about what Michelle Obama’s racial identity is going to mean to her husband’s supposedly post-partisan, post-racial politics presidential run. At one point, Cooper asked his guest whether discussion is needed of the fact that while Barack’s multi-racial identity has been one of the campaign’s most important cultural signifiers, “her racial identity is less mutable”? Translation: He may be the Tiger Woods of politics but she’s a black woman from Chicago, straight up. Since DoubleSecretThesis-gate didn’t exactly catch fire, do we need to instead debate the cultural implications of […]