BY DAVE DAVIES Six voters associated with Democratic mayoral candidate Tom Knox filed a legal challenge to rival candidate U.S. Rep. Bob Brady late yesterday, charging that Brady failed to disclose his city pension and other financial interests when he filed to run. Another rival, state Rep. Dwight Evans, said last night he’ll file his own challenge to Brady’s candidacy today, noting that Brady’s failure to disclose his city pension is exactly the kind of omission that’s been used to strike other candidates from the ballot in past elections. “Brady is running for the highest office in Philadelphia,” Evans said […]
MEDIA: Viacom Sues YouTube For One BILLION
It’s been brewing for months, and now Reuters reports that the kettle has officially blown: Yesterday, media juggernaut Viacom filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google Inc. and its recently-acquired YouTube over unauthorized use of Viacom’s copyrighted materials. According to Reuters, the suit accuses both defendants of “‘massive intentional copyright infringement’ of Viacom’s entertainment assets” and seeks an injunction against further violations, claiming that nearly 160,000 unauthorized clips of its programming have been uploaded onto YouTube and viewed more than 1.5 billion times. The suit marks the final step in Viacom’s quest to push YouTube out of the video distribution […]
How Many Corpses Does It Take To Suspend Habeas?
WHO: US. Rep. Barney Frank (D., Mass.) & Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Az.) WHAT: Will discuss whether Guantanamo Bay inmates have the right to habeas corpus in a debate moderated by Ted Koppel. WHEN: Sunday, March 18 at 5:30 p.m. WHERE: National Constitution Center 525 Arch Street, Independence Mall, DETAILS: As part of the inaugural Peter Jennings Project for Journalists and the Constitution, Barney Frank and Jon Kyl will debate whether detainees should be able to seek relief for unlawful imprisonment and appear before a court. Ted Koppel will moderate. Barney Frank has represented Massachusetts’ fourth congressional district since 1981. […]
MATINEE: Contar Ovejas
Directed by Tim Burton.
LIVE REVIEW: J-Garofalo At Theater Of Arts
BY SARA SHERR When you see Janeane Garofalo up close, the first thing you notice is how tiny she is. While standing in the box office line, I saw The Heroine To Stubby, Smart-Ass Girls Everywhere walk on by in a knit cap, leather jacket, black-and-white houndstooth pants, and the exact same face from the ’90s: porcelain skin, red lips, and cat-eye glasses. Onstage, she was larger than life with her signature jet black hair, tattoos and blue tank top that read “Praise the Lord.” Like Exile in Guyville, she was all punk rock and piss and vinegar. In rapid-fire […]
STUDY: DOJ Corruption Probes R Ridiculously Partisan
In statewide and federal cases they found a total of 66 investigations. Here’s the breakdown: * Democrats: 36 * Republicans: 30 This is roughly what you’d expect. Democrats are slightly overrepresented compared to their actual numbers, but only by a bit. There’s nothing fishy. But the numbers for local cases paint a very different story. They found 309 investigations, broken down as follows: * Democrats: 262 * Republicans: 37 * Independents: 10 Now isn’t that odd? At the local level, even though both parties make up about half of all elected officials, Democrats get hammered and Republicans are left alone…. […]
Today I Saw…
BY JEFF DEENEY “Today I saw…” is a series of nonfiction shorts based on my experiences as a caseworker serving formerly homeless families now living in North and West Philadelphia. I decided not long after starting the job that I was seeing so many fascinating and disturbing things in the city’s poorest neighborhoods that I needed to start cataloging them. I hope this bi-weekly column serves as a record of a side of the city that many Philadelphians don’t come in contact with on a daily basis. I want to capture moments not frequently covered by the local media, which […]
Philly Confidential Returns, Now In The ‘Royal She’
[Philly Confidential] grew tired of blaming the cops for the city’s crime woes. She decided it was time to move beyond the cop beat and submerge herself into the dark abyss that is the First Judicial District. She studied crime statistics and learned that youth gun violence is at a 5-year high. She spoke to prosecutors, along with court officials, to understand the nuances of juvenile justice, yet saw how slack everything seemed. Then she snooped around a few courtrooms and heard that too many teen murderers were assigned to probation officers months, sometimes days, before a slaying. What she […]
SHISTER: Olbermann Living Life Of O’Reilly — Mad As Heck And Not Gonna Motherf***** Take It Any More!
“Keith is MSNBC’s rock star,” says Phil Griffin, NBC News senior vice president and executive in charge of its corporate cousin. “People follow him. They believe in him.” Countdown averaged 709,000 total viewers in the February sweeps, up a whopping 77 percent over the same period in ’06, according to Nielsen Media Research. Among 25- to 54-year-old viewers, the demographic advertisers pay a premium to reach, Olbermann, 48, spiked 59 percent. No wonder MSNBC just quadrupled his salary. At an estimated $4 million a year, he’s the highest-paid on-air talent at the network. As part of his new four-year deal, […]
SNEAK PREVIEW: WHAT WE DO IS SECRET
Germs biopic, due out mid-summer.
THE EARLY WORD: Special Beat Service
WORLD CAFE LIVE FRIDAY MAY 25th
GAYBO: Eurotrash + Camp + Drag = Homovision
BY TOMMY ZANE Outrageous drag queens? Hideous costumes? Flamboyantly flaming back-up dancers? Dreadful songs sung in foreign languages for a three hour spectacular never to be seen in America? That can only mean one thing: The 52nd Annual Eurovision Song Contest season has arrived! It’s like opera for trashounds. For those of you not familiar, here’s the scoop. Back in a post-WWII 1956, leaders of The European Broadcasting Union created The Eurovision Song Contest to unite a shattered Europe in song. Each country selects a song to represent the entire nation in the competition and the global TV viewing audience […]