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Streaming .TV shows by Ustream FRESH AIR Efforts to capture oil leaking from the BP well in the Gulf of Mexico suffered a setback Wednesday, after an underwater robot bumped into the venting system of a containment cap — forcing BP to temporarily remove its latest effort to capture the millions of gallons of oil spewing into the Gulf. Henry Fountain covers science and engineering for The New York Times. April’s Deepwater Horizon disaster has continued to raise questions about the oil industry’s ability to manage the challenges and risks involved in drilling miles below the ocean floor to reach […]

MCSWEENEYS: I understand you had higher hopes for where you’d end up. But the simple fact is that I chose you, not some fashion-forward type who’d wear you once every few weeks to lobster boils and garden walks and might even have you professionally laundered. Beyond that, I need to make clear up front that, for me, you aren’t leisure wear, weekend wear, or yacht wear: I won’t be wearing you in the off-hours when I’m not in a suit, because I don’t own a suit. I’m going to need to rely on you all day, every day, day in […]

YAHOO: A federal judge in New York sided with Google Inc. in a $1 billion copyright lawsuit filed by media company Viacom Inc. over YouTube videos, saying the service promptly removed illegal materials as required under federal law. Wednesday’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton in the closely watched case further affirmed the protections offered to online service providers under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The 1998 law offers immunity when service providers promptly remove illegal materials submitted by users once they are notified of a violation. That safe harbor had helped persuade Google to buy YouTube for $1.76 […]

JOHN STOSSEL: Two years ago, in Prince George’s County, Md., cops raided Cheye Calvo’s home — all because a box of marijuana was randomly shipped to his wife as part of a smuggling operation. Only later did the police learn that Calvo was innocent — and the mayor of that town. “When this first happened, I assumed it was just a terrible, terrible mistake,” Calvo said. “But the more I looked into it, the more I realized (it was) business as usual that brought the police through our front door. This is just what they do. We just don’t hear […]

BRENDAN CALLING: Living in our neighborhood are a few semi-feral cats who have kittens on a frighteningly regular basis. We’ve adopted two in the past year, inviting Henry, a grey tabby mix, into the house in January 2009, and bringing Little Elvis, an orange tabby mix who fit in the palm of my hand and was practically dead, inside in October. Both have since had kittens that need homes. Baby Little Elvis is doing quite well for himself as an outdoor cat, but Baby Henry is not. He (she?) has the same eye infection Little Elvis had when we adopted […]

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Governor Ed Rendell says rumors that have been circulating about an extramarital affair are not true. In an advance copy of the Philadelphia magazine article obtained by The Associated Press, the governor and the former beauty queen who works for him say in interviews that they are not romantically involved. MORE PHILLY CLOUT: The July edition of Philadelphia Magazine is hot off the presses with a story on the long-running rumors about Gov. Rendell and Dr. Kirstin Snow, the director of Commonwealth Media Services who was Miss Pennsylvania in 1994 and Mrs. Pennsylvania in 2005.  It’s not quite a […]

ASSOCIATED PRESS: The Louisiana judge who struck down the Obama administration’s six-month ban on deepwater oil drilling in the Gulf of Mexico has reported extensive investments in the oil and gas industry, according to financial disclosure reports. He’s also a new member of a secret national security court. U.S. District Judge Martin Feldman, a 1983 appointee of President Ronald Reagan, reported owning less than $15,000 in stock in 2008 in Transocean Ltd., the company that owned the sunken Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. Feldman overturned the ban Tuesday, saying the government simply assumed that because one rig exploded, the others pose […]

AP takes on the ‘non-troversey’ surrounding the two-year-old Indonesian boy who smokes two packs a day, pointing out that when he was that age he smoke THREE packs of Lucky Strikes a day AND worked full time in the coal mines of Pennsyltucky. He had to, he had three kids, two ex-wives and a bartender to support. [rimshot]