AOL NEWS: Despite President Obama’s “inclination to look forward,” repeated gain at Monday’s press conference, a new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that as many as 71% of Americans want investigations of the Bush administration. Respondents were asked about investigations into Bush administration use of torture, warrantless wiretaps, and politicization of the Justice Department. While a significant majority in each case wanted investigations, a minority portion of them wanted investigations without criminal charges. Somewhat surprising is the fact that even Republicans show significant support for investigations, with 52% favoring investigations of the politicization of the DOJ, 44% on torture, and 41% […]
HEAR YE: The Vivian Girls
Now playing on PHAWKER RADIO! Vivian Girls open for M.Ward at the Troc Friday! VICTIM OF TIME: Behold the Vivian Girls. Just as their alluring name only became passed around mere months ago, this group of three upstart New York females have taken the noisy pop mantra and dipped it in pure gold, right out of the gate. With their debut 7″ on their very own Plays With Dolls Records label already sending out waves of panic and adoration to the outer limits of the underground pop contingent, they have become the newest breakout sirens of the New York loft-pop […]
WAITING TO EXHALE: Sheriff Declines To Prosecute Michael Phelps For Violating Stupid Pot Laws
[Illustration by ALEX FINE] BLOOMBERG NEWS: Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, who won a record eight gold medals in Beijing in 2008, won’t be prosecuted in connection with his admission that he smoked from a bong at a South Carolina college party in November. The Richland County, South Carolina, sheriff’s department announced the decision at a news conference. Sheriff Leon Lott said there wasn’t enough evidence to charge Phelps. “We had a photo and him saying he was sorry for inappropriate behavior,” Lott said during a televised press conference. “He never said, ‘I smoked marijuana.’ We didn’t have physical evidence.” Lott […]
Whatever You Put On Facebook Stays On Facebook
SILICON VALLEY BUSINESS JOURNAL: A number of bloggers voiced concern Monday after discovering that Facebook Inc. changed rules earlier this month regarding how it treats user content. The Palo Alto-based social networking company now says in its terms of service that it will have unending and irrevocable license to use any content uploaded to its service, according to a posting on The Consumerist blog. The story is one of the ten most talked about Monday on Twitter Inc.‘s micro-blogging service. Before now, Facebook said it would only have rights to use any content posted on its service while the user […]
BUSH DOCTRINE: Anal ‘Rape By Instrumentality’
HARPERS: Army Private Brandon Neely served as a prison guard at Guantánamo in the first years the facility was in operation. With the Bush Administration, and thus the threat of retaliation against him, now gone, Neely decided to step forward and tell his story. “The stuff I did and the stuff I saw was just wrong,” he told the Associated Press. Neely describes the arrival of detainees in full sensory-deprivation garb, he details their sexual abuse by medical personnel, torture by other medical personnel, brutal beatings out of frustration, fear, and retribution, the first hunger strike and its causes, torturous […]
POLL OF PREZ SCHOLARS: Lincoln Simply The Best
REUTERS: Abraham Lincoln ranks first in leadership skills among the 42 former White House occupants, according a C-SPAN survey of 65 presidential historians released on the eve of the Presidents Day holiday. It’s a repeat performance for the 16th U.S. president, who also took the top spot in the first ”Historians Presidential Survey” by the cable television network in 2000. At No. 36, George W. Bush ranks near the bottom of the 2009 survey. MORE THE NATION: Abraham Lincoln has always provided a lens through which Americans examine themselves. He has been described as a consummate moralist and a shrewd political operator, a lifelong foe of […]
CONCERT REVIEW: Five Things You Should Know About Rufus Wainright At The Kimmel Last Night
[Photo by TIFFANY YOON] 1. He’s Got Miles And Miles of Style Dressed in clingy cranberry trousers, brown sparkly shoes tied up in bows and a cream blazer with a ruby flower broach on the lapel, his flopsy bangs shorn to Hugh-Grant-in- Four-Weddings-And-A-Funeral-length, Rufus looked hale and healthy and so happy together. Noting the balcony crowd bearing down upon him from all sides, he declared: “I feel like I’m on trial…and I’m winning the case.” The jury of his peers would acquit him handsomely, awarding him two standing ovations by the night’s end. More importantly, his swooning woman of a […]
All Of This Happened While You Were Sleeping
? ABOUT LAST NIGHT: Heartless At Vesuvios, 8th & Fitzwater, w/ DJ Si Young [Photos by TIFFANY YOON/CLICK TO ENLARGE]
WEEK IN REVIEW: The Good News Flower Hour
The Good News Flower Hour #9 The week that was in five minutes. Read by a flower that sounds an awful lot like me. Just do it, people.
KILLADELPHIA: Cop Killed In The Line Of Duty
INQUIRER: Another Philadelphia police officer has been gunned down in the line of duty, this time in an apparent shoot-out tonight in front of the Olney Transportation Center. Initial reports were that he was wounded after he and his partner responded to a report of a “fight on the highway” on Broad Street near Olney Street. Officer John Pawlowski, 25, who was assigned to the 35th Police District, was the first to be killed in the line of duty this year. The newly married whose wife is expecting their first child is the fourth city officer to be fatally shot […]
PERSPECTIVE: How High Is $789 Billion?
Using $100 bills, $789 billion would create a pile 57 miles high. Note that the atmosphere begins seven miles above the Earth’s surface. RELATED: The House approved a $787 billion economic stimulus package Friday afternoon, with Democrats successfully promoting it as a boost for middle-class Americans and Republicans countering in vain that it will only stimulate wasteful government spending.The vote was 246 to 183, reflecting the Democrats’ considerable majority in the House and the Republicans’ deep dissatisfaction with the measure, whose estimated price tag has fluctuated daily and was finally placed at $787 billion on Friday. Not a single Republican […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Danny Boyle, the director of the Oscar-nominated Slumdog Millionaire, says that filming in India presented a variety of difficulties, from language barriers to a limited crew size, but the on-location work allowed him to represent India’s “incredibly rich and complex society.” Slumdog Millionaire tells the story of an orphan boy who gets a shot at glory on the Indian version of Who Wants to be a Millionaire?. The film has garnered 10 Oscar nominations, including nods for best picture and director. Boyle’s other films include Trainspotting, 28 Days Later, Sunshine and Shallow Grave. RADIO TIMES Hour 1 During […]
CINEMA: Reign Of Blood
FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009, directed by Marcus Nispel, 97 minutes, U.S.) BY DAN BUSKIRK FILM CRITIC Friday the 13th is the highest-grossing horror franchise in film history, banking over half a billion adjusted dollars. As successful as the films have been, Friday The 13th has been mocked, derided and dismissed, even by gorehounds, as a series that has been prey to the whim of its producers and never the brainchild of a auteur genre director like George Romero or John Carpenter. If none of the Friday the 13th films is a masterpiece, it is the core elements of the series […]