The Good News Flower Hour #8 Just do it, people.
OBAMALICIOUS: Reason # 647 Why Obama Is The Best Thing To Happen To The White House Since Lincoln Dreamed Up The Emancipation Proclamation
BOSTON PHOENIX: In his bestselling autobiography, Dreams From My Father, President Obama introduces us to his high school friend, “Ray,” who, like him, is bi-racial. Who, also like him, is casting about to find his place in the world. But, who, unlike him, has a potty mouth that would make a sailor blush. Best of all? When reading the audiobook version of his bio, Obama does impressions of Ray’s manner of speech. Swear words and all. It’s fucking awesome. And it’s a way of talking we probably won’t be hearing from him now that he’s POTUS. Or will we? MORE […]
OUR STIMULUS PLAN: Buy Death Star, Kill Recession
GIZIMODO: If you had $15.6 septillion and 94 cents in your account, would you save the world from the economic crisis or build a Death Star, destroy the world, and move on to invade the galaxy? A guy called Ryszard Gold—who probably is an alien villain from the Outer Rim planets and got a 49-point score in our Geek Social Aptitude Test—made the calculation of the most basic Death Star’s price with current materials and space transport costs here on Earth. Here’s a quick summary…MORE HOT DOCUMENT: So we just got this email from the White House Press Office outlining […]
AMEN: The Reefer Madness Of American Pot Laws
WASHINGTON POST: Olympian swimmer Michael Phelps and Sheriff Leon Lott of South Carolina’s Richland County are being forced to treat seriously a crime that shouldn’t be one. As everyone knows by now, Phelps was photographed smoking from an Olympic-sized bong during a University of South Carolina party last November. [Sheriff] Lott is threatening action against Phelps because … he has to. Widely respected and admired as a “good guy” who came up through the ranks, Lott is in a jam. Not one to sweat the small stuff, he nevertheless has said that he’ll charge Phelps with a crime if he […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR Sarah Chayes first went to Afghanistan to report on the Taliban for NPR, but in 2002, after the fall of the Taliban government in Kabul, she left journalism and dedicated herself to rebuilding the country. She drew on her experiences to write her 2006 book, The Punishment of Virtue. Chayes is an advocate for economic development in Afghanistan, and she founded a cooperative in Kandahar that produces skin-care products from local crops. The cooperative aims to help farmers earn a living from licit crops rather than opium. Chayes joins Fresh Air to explain how the Taliban is using […]
THE DUDE ABIDES: ‘I Screwed Up’
[Photo by JEFF FUSCO] HUFFPO: “We can’t send a message to the American people that we have two sets of rules — one for prominent people and one for ordinary people,” he told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “Ultimately I have to take responsibility for a process that resulted in us not having an HHS Secretary at a time when people need relief on their healthcare costs.” Certainly, the Daschle drama had taken the White House by a surprise. Democrats on the Hill were convinced that revelations of failed tax payments would not be enough to derail the nomination. A source […]
CLUELESS: According To Rasmussen Poll, Majority Of GOP Thinks Party Should Be MORE Like Sarah Palin
HUFFPO: While the media and political elites debate the future of the GOP, rank and file Republicans see see no need to deviate from the party’s current path. According to a recent Rasmussen poll, a plurality of Republican voters think the party has grown too moderate over the past eight years, and a majority think the party should become more like controversial Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. MORE GUARDIAN: Alaska governor Sarah Palin opened a political action committee yesterday, a move that may not outright confirm her intentions of running for US president in 2012 but indicates she intends to remain […]
WEEKEND UPDATE: The Good News Flower Hour
The Good News Flower Hour #7 The latest edition of our five-minute week-in-review, wherein I’m a flower that reads the news. This is by far the best one yet. Hats off to our partners in crime at Collateral News and Woodshop Films.
BOOK EXCERPT: Tear Down This Myth
EDITOR’S NOTE: Phawker is proud to bring you this excerpt from Daily News scribe/Attytood blogger-in-chief Will Bunch’s soon-to-publish Tear Down This Myth: How The Reagan Legacy Has Distorted Our Politics And Haunts Our Future, a meaty, pointed dissection of the dream factory mythologizing of Ronald Reagan’s presidency — how this is being done, why, and the impact such historical revisionism has on our current political landscape. The short answer to all the above can be found the following quote from George Orwell, which kicks off the book: ‘Who controls the past’ ran the Party slogan, ‘controls the future: who controls […]
BURN AFTER READING: CIA’s Algerian Station Chief Accused Of Drugging And Raping Two Muslim Women
ABC NEWS: The CIA’s station chief at its sensitive post in Algeria is under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department for allegedly raping at least two Muslim women who claim he laced their drinks with a knock-out drug, U.S. law enforcement sources tell ABC News. The suspect in the case is identified as Andrew Warren in an affidavit for a search warrant filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. by an investigator for the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service. Officials say the 41-year old Warren, a convert to Islam, was ordered home by the U.S. Ambassador, David Pearce, in October […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR In his new book, We Can Have Peace In The Holy Land: A Plan That Will Work, former President Jimmy Carter presents his strategy to end fighting between Israelis and Palestinians. The 39th president of the United States, Carter is the author of Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid and the founder of The Carter Center, an organization that promotes conflict resolution and peace. ALSO, Ethan Bronner, the Jerusalem bureau chief for The New York Times, has written about the Arab-Israeli conflict for more than 25 years. Recently, he has been covering the conflict in Gaza. In a Jan. 24 […]
CLIMATE: The Winter Of Our Discontent
VIRAL NERD: These pictures come from a friends friend who lives in Alaska. This caribou froze while standing up in -80°F winds on the North slope at the top of Alaska. MORE CHICAGO TRIBUNE: Authorities in two cities in northeastern Wisconsin are investigating deaths of people found outside in last weekend’s subzero cold. Florence County Sheriff Jeff Ricksby said Monday that a 43-year-old woman was found about 9:30 a.m. Saturday on stairs next to the entrance to her Florence home by her ex-husband and 13-year-old son. The sheriff said in a news release that the woman slipped on ice and […]
NPR FOR THE DEAF: We Hear It Even When You Can’t
FRESH AIR How do you make a realistic film about a notoriously “fake” sport? That was the question Darren Aronofsky faced when he agreed to direct The Wrestler, a movie starring Mickey Rourke as a gnarled professional wrestler whose glory days are gone. Both Rourke and supporting actress Marisa Tomei have received Oscar nominations for their work in the film. Aronofsky’s previous directorial credits include Pi (1998) and Requiem For A Dream (2000). RADIO TIMES Hour 1 Last week, President Obama ordered the suspension of all trials at Guantanamo Bay and signed an executive order to close the detention center […]