News sentence of the day

Via Glenn Greenwald, an Agence France-Presse wire story on Dick Cheney's exploding heart.

Whoops. Someone better get on the blower and tell France how real American journalism professionals sidestep that whole "torture" thingy dingy. Hint: they pretend it didn't happen and that torture isn't actually torture. Shh, pass it on.

I know, France. This whole "Debate" over who did what to whom with electrodes and barking dogs seems so cut and dried that even a Fox News analyst can see it for what it is and prescribe the correct line of action, but it isn't. Because. Try to bone up on your journalism standards. The objective isn't truth, it's covering for those in power. Remember that next time you go besmirching a man like Dick Cheney's record with an objective reporting of the facts.

By the by, it's nice to see Cheney finally have a heart type device implanted into his chest to replace the gaping black void of nothingness, avarice, and sadness that resided there before. A few years too late by my count, but still a nice gesture.

LeGone

As the world watched LeBron's sad, narcissistic farewell/fuck you to the city of Cleveland, one had to sit back in awe at the misguided, cruel, tone deaf, ego stroking nonsense it was. A double fuck you to ESPN, for hyping it and shoving it down everyone's throats. This is why we hate you, Worldwide Leader.

But aside from the whole media whoring, mememememememe, "I wanted to do what was best for LeBron James.... What LeBron James was going to do to make him happy" third person, self-absorbed bullshit that it was, one had to take note at just how needlessly mean it was to a franchise he spent 7 years with and the fans who "witnessed". Or whatever inane Nike slogan it was they used to crown the King. Cleveland, we sympathize. OK, we don't. But it was still a shitty thing to do. As Deadspin put it: "LeBron James is a cocksucker." HE MADE BIEBER CRY!!

On the bright side, your owner went delightfully insane. First posting a letter full of righteous anger that wasn't even tempered by the curious, usually point destroying use of the font Comic Sans. He then knocked LeBron for his poor playoff performance and, rightfully, for quitting during the Celtics series. Fans were burning jerseys, screaming "Judas!", and talking themselves into Jake Delhomme and the upcoming Browns season. You know, depraved shit.

So Sean and I were eagerly awaiting the city's final farewell to LeTraitor, via the front page of the Plain Dealer. What cheap shot would they take? What insult would they hurl? What cruel photoshop would they unveil in order to mock and humiliate the jerkoff who spent an hour, nay offseason, jerking the city around in the unkindest of ways?


Eh. It's a nice, refined version of "Count the no rings, bitch" but we were hoping for so more. So we took it upon ourselves to offer up the city of Cleveland two alternative headlines to send the King off to his new position as Dwyane Wade's sidekick in South Beach.

Tell me they wouldn't already be going back to the printers to order a third run. C'mon Cleveland, this was your one chance to curse in a headline and be cheered for it. Missed opportunity. You had a chance to be justifiably and insanely bitter, vulgar, and mean in print, and you settled for catty.

Take solace though, aside from all the endorsement money he might have just cost himself by turning into the world's most unlikable ass, he probably stored up enough negative karma to engender a multi-ligament blowout on both of his knees somewhere around week one of training camp. Then Miami will be down to fielding a two man team filled out with "Win a spot on the Heat" raffle winners selected from season ticket holders.

Just hold out a little longer. The "delighting in his misery" part will be glorious.

Drill, baby, drill --> Burn, baby, burn

Don't worry citizens. You know the giant oil slick that's menacing the Gulf and threatening coastlines and marine life? There's a solution. They're just going it light it on fire and burn away the oil. Seriously.

The US coastguard is to set fire to oil leaking into the Gulf of Mexico to prevent the slick from reaching shore after last week's explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig.

Robot submarines have so far failed to shut off the flow more than 1,500 metres below where the Deepwater Horizon was wrecked. Eleven workers are missing, presumed dead, and the cause of the explosion 50 miles off Louisiana has not been determined.

A coastguard spokesman said the burn would begin today. Prentice Danner said fire-resistant booms would be used to corral some of the thickest oil on the surface, which would then be ignited. It was unclear how large an area would be set on fire or how far from shore the fire would be set.

Think of it as less "world's largest ecological disaster" and more "world's largest fish fry". I just think of the tremendous boon this will be to the newspaper industry. They gotta wrap those fish in something. A little investment advice: tartar sauce future are about to go through the roof.

This tactic was employed in Newfoundland in 1993 and ended up burning off half of the oil that had been spilled in an event that in no way make anyone anywhere concerned about the environmental hazards of offshore drilling. Let it be said that there is no ecological problem that cannot be solved by fire.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 03.31

Up In Smoke: How Marijuana Ruined States’ Chances Of Invalidating Health Care Law In Court
The passage of health care set off a rash of frivolous lawsuits from state AG's with hopes for higher office and a penchant for wasting the money of cash strapped governments in times of economic crisis. Will they succeed? No. But that inevitability isn't so much interesting as why they will fail to succeed, besides the basic "not understanding the Constitution" thing. Essentially the Supreme Court, and Antonin Scalia in particular, recently ruled in a marijuana case that the government had a right to regulate interstate non-economic activity as a part of regulating interstate commerce. So unless Scalia totally reverses his opinion for political means, any challenge that makes it to the Supremes isn't likely to even pass muster with the conservative wing. Actually, that sounds incredibly likely. Still, marijuana: is there anything it can't do?

Beijing to sweeten stench of rubbish crisis with giant deodorant guns
For some countries a sensible response to a garbage crisis would be better collection and disposal methods, moves to make sure less waste is produced, or even recycling programs. Not China though. Instead of actually responding to their crippling garbage crisis they've just decided to buy a really big can of Axe body spray and just drench their trash in it so people don't have to smell it. Efforts are already underway to paint the trash to look like land and convincing people to ignore it. I think we may have to admit that China may be taking the lead away from us in the Ignoring Potentially Disastrous Environmental Problems category. Ouch. We really seem to cherish that one too.

Art of the Steal: On the Trail of World’s Most Ingenious Thief
What if you were a savant. And not one of those crappy ones who is only good at something like math, the viola, or counting toothpicks that Charlie Babbitt dropped on the floor. No, a savant at stealing shit. Such is the skill of one Gerald Blanchard, a man with the preternatural ability to seemingly exploit any flaw in security. Wired tells his story and how he was caught by two Winnipeg cops.

The most dangerous drug isn't meow meow. It isn't even alcohol...
Charlie Brooker, the man who did this, explains how newspapers, especially newspapers covering drugs, are the most dangerous mind destroying drug on the planet. And he's talking about British ones too. I imagine if he ever had to read an American one or watch American 24 hour news, he'd take his own life.

New Study Estimates Mass Deportation Of Undocumented Immigrants Would Cost $285 Billion
In a tremendous blow to Mexican hating everywhere, it turns out that if we decided everyone in the restaurant, service, farming, and labor industries it'd cost close to $300 billion, or $922 in tax dollars for everyone in the US. Everyone American that is. Not to mention it would completely depopulate California and force white people to get their hands dirty while laboring... and maybe completely cripple US economic growth. Plus who would militias and border state Republicans and Southern Republicans and most Republicans hate then? The Polish? On the other hand, if you put undocumented workers on a path to legalization, it could add nearly $1.5 trillion to GDP over the next decade. I think we know the clear and obvious path here. You start rounding up Mexicans and I'll go door to door collecting $922 a person.

Broken News: Jesus breathes sigh of relief at underwhelming iPad release

THE HEREAFTER—After the tepid reaction to Steve Jobs’ unveiling of the new Apple branded tablet laptop, dubbed the iPad, sources close to the Son of God, Jesus, have noted that our Lord seems more relieved than usual at the seeming failure of the device to ignite the imaginations of the public at large.

“I just think that of all the things that could possibly supplant His status as the messiah, He was most worried about technology,” revealed one of the holy host anonymously, given that it was an ephemeral being on a spiritual plane without corporeal form or tangible existence.

“He felt that with one more great product that either Apple or Steve Jobs himself would be able to supplant Him in the Trinity. The iPod was great, everyone loves the iPhone, and He really feared that a cheap, touch screen tablet would really push Apple over the top. Thankfully it appears that everyone was underwhelmed, calling it an oversized iPod touch, knocking the whole ‘no keyboard’ thing, or bagging on the underwhelming features. Jesus is really relieved about that.”

Indeed the iPad is only the most recent attempt made to supplant His legacy as the savior of man. In recent years Jesus has successfully fended of challenges to His throne, from the Star Wars prequels, every Super Bowl, Playstation 3, and all forms of alcohol to Tom Brady and President Obama.

However it was only with Apple that the Lord started to take an active and rooting interest against their products and CEO.

“I think it was because He had to switch His service from Verizon to AT&T to get an iPhone,” sang a host of cherubim. “Let’s face it, the 3G service and coverage is remarkably poorer and He is currently in the process of condemning Luke Wilson to hell for convincing Him otherwise. The Lord has been holding back on punishment for residual good will he still held towards Wilson for both Bottle Rocket and Old School, but those fucking ads were just too much. Verizon had unlimited night and weekend minutes!”

“Plus there was the worry that an iPad could revive the flagging fortunes of the moribund US print media, magazines, and newspapers. The Lord has spent the better part of the last two decades smiting them unmercifully and he didn’t want to see his work undone with a new revenue stream.”

In fact the Lord was heard to gleefully cheer on middling reviews from Gizmodo and other tech sites, punctuating His relieved whoops with fist pumps and remarks that newspapers “stay dead.”

“IPad?” a chuffed Lord was heard to sarcastically ask.

“Sounds like a high tech tampon, am I right Father,” our uncreative Lord was heard to ask, no one in the immediate vicinity having the guts to mention that iPad/tampon jokes were completely fucked out and unfunny within five minutes of the name being unveiled.

For now the Lord is in a holding pattern. Gleeful that Apple seems to have made a misstep, but wary that they might, as is their style, be holding back a better, new and improved, second generation iPad to be released four months after the initial iPad release.

“I think He’s just going to hang back, jam some tunes on His iPod, play a little Risk on his iPhone, maybe download one of those boobie jiggling apps, and capriciously smite great historians and writers while leaving alive everyone currently appearing on a reality show,” observed close friend and confidant to Jesus, Superman.

“That’s right, I really existed and now I’m dead,” yelled the angry Man of Steel. “Snookie: still living!”

For his part, Steve Jobs vowed to fix the iPad and create new technological innovations that would allow him to supplant the Lord.

“I have this one idea: it’s essentially a really, really big iPhone instead of just a kinda big iPhone like the iPad was,” Jobs announced. “52 inches wide, with a wireless remote… I call it the i…TV!”

“I’m running out of ideas here,” he sighed.

As of press time it was unclear how the Lord felt about these new revelations.

Art of the day

Via the site The Golden Age of Comic Book Stores comes this look at the late 19th/early 20th century editorial headings of Winsor McCay.

Click to embiggen.

Chart of the day

As if you needed a reminder, the Awl looks at major newspaper circulation since 1990 and finds that airplanes fall flaming from the sky in less deadly trajectories than the American print news industry. But hey, I'm sure they'll fix everything somehow and get those numbers moving up.

Not pictured: the Boston Globe. Because a chart can only be so tall when describing horrific downward spirals. Just know that the Globe started out on the bottom of the chart and quickly fell of the fahkin face of the fahkin earth. No one denies this! Also of note: you can see your house from the top of the LA Times circulation in 1990.

Chart of the day

From Mint.com comes this handy chart showing how the American newspaper is more or less screwed, a shambling zombie, staggering down the street waiting for that sweet sweet bullet to the head. Come now, don't gawk and the deceased, it's impolite.

On the bright side, Glenn Beck built a lovely ski chalet at the top of the Scripps stock plunge. Though due to the steepness of the drop it is rated a black diamond course. Less brave souls might want to try the bunny hills on Gannett, McClatchey, and the Times more gently downward angled slopes. Still, lovely scenery from up that high and the snowboarding is excellent.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 08.11

In healthcare debate, 'reality' is in dispute
The LA Times looks at the extensive lengths supporters have to go to in order to fight opponents who question the very nature of truth and reality on a daily basis. They even had to create a website and videos to assure people that Obama wasn't going to garrote your grandmother at her weekly canasta game. He's much to crafty for that, he'll just order one of the car companies he now owns to give her defective brakes.

Newspaper Ad Revenue to Recover
If by recover you mean "rise slightly". 2.4%! With a chance that by 2014 ad revenue will increase by almost 8%! That's right, the print media barely gets to see its ad revenues rise with inflation and this is being hailed as the end of newspapers' slide. Sorry, it's just a longer than expected death rattle which at the end of you'll have to figure out a better plan than "fire all the experienced people", "curse Craigslist with every breath", and "hire more discredited neoconservative columnists".

How House Bill Runs Over Grandma
Investor's Business Daily, in their quest to discredit themselves as badly on health care as the preceding years have discredited them on investing and business, tries its hand at scaring you about your grandma's impending government sanctioned murder. The best example they have is the case of the UK's NHS and Stephen Hawking, who they claim wouldn't have a chance at survival in England's socialist health care system. This despite the fact that Hawking is English (that robot voice with the American accent does tend to confuse things), has lived with NHS care his entire life, and is, you know, still alive. Nice try though IBD, maybe next time.

‘Worse Than Doing Nothing At All’
Turns out the Justice Department may finally start prosecuting torture. But alas, in true American fashion, will only actually go after the lowest level operative who did it. Apparently they had no superiors who ordered them to do it after it had been made an official tactic by branch heads on the orders of the White House. Funny how that always turns out to be the case. It's always the grunts and only ever the grunts.

The Future Of Sushi: Farms?
Hope you don't like sushi, or really the entire species of bluefin tuna. Because they're pretty much going to be completely extinct in about 3-5 years unless some severely drastic measures are taken. It has something to do with the fact that fisherman overfish the stocks by three times the legal limit while no one does anything about it and that current fishing levels are about 4 times what they would need to be to not make the bluefin go extinct. Ah well, that Charlie Tuna character was kind of an asshole. He deserves this.

Amy's fairground attraction
You see what's happening, gay marriage advocates? You laughed at us for suggesting that gay marriage might lead us down a slippery slope towards marrying a dog, or two dogs, or sentient robots, or three dogs, or a robot dog, but know a British woman is going to marry a roller coaster. A roller coaster that may in fact be dog themed. Is this the perverse future you envisioned? Just keep your damned hands off Space Mountain, that sassy lady is mine.

Cheap Blogging Crutch 07.23

Make no little plans
The epic tale of NYU President John Sexton and his multi-billion dollar quest to make New York University the premier academic institution in the world....by building a branch campus to teach western style education in the heart of a repressive regime not known for intellectual freedom, respect for individual rights, and a religious based Islamic education foundation. I'm sure there will be no problems with all that. Still, the NYU-Abu Dhabi campus is not as illustrious as the branch campuses my alma mater, Pitt, has in Greensburg or Titusville, but it'll do. I think ole Johnny Sexton is going to be blown away by our multi-thousand dollar facility that's under discussion for Kittaning.

Ignoring Watchdog Report, Treasury Gives Three Major Banks Sweetheart Deals
SO it turns out that Tim Geithner might just be a total financial industry suck-up and goon? My faith in the best and brightest of Wall Street is shaken once again. Sweetheart deals for banks? Taxpayers only getting 2/3rd's of the value of its assets? Nude old white man orgies on piles of greasy money? Funnily enough the one bank that did pay fair market price for the warrants was Goldmann-Sachs, probably out of fear. Score one for Matt Taibbi. See, sometimes when you yell at a company looting the American taxpayer, you can startle them so badly that they drop a few nickels.

Leader Of GOP Health Care “Solutions Group” Says GOP Won’t Offer Health Care Bill
What? You're telling me the GOP doesn't have a health care solution beyond "vaguely endorse things being cheaper" and then stamping their feet, holding their breath and yelling "Socialism!" at anything that attempts to make things cheaper? Shocking.

New York Times Reports $39.1 Million 2Q Profit
Somehow, possibly through witchcraft or some other dark art, a newspaper made money. I can only assume that this is because the Times was able to reclassify itself as a bank and get bailed out. I think that's how they were able to negotiate the selling off of a bad asset like Bill Kristol back to the conservative movement.

Obama, Farm Industry Clash Over Antibiotics
It seems that President Obama and the FDA have decided that maybe the food industry pumping every animal full of antibiotics, us eating those drugged up animals, and resulting creation of super-drug resistant bacteria, isn't such a great idea. They've proposed a bill to make it illegal to give new antibiotics to farm animals unless they're actually sick and restrict the use of older form of the drugs. Because this makes sense and is supported by scientific research, it will have trouble getting passed in the Senate. For a greater understanding of why this is all bad, go see Food Inc., and then be driven to never eat anything again.

Sounds ethical

What are you to do if you're a struggling news paper. Revenues are down debt is up, you decided a long time ago to put your news on the web for free and now no one will ever accept paying for it, and Craigslist is sleeping in your house, driving in your car, eating your food, and screwing your wife. So if you're the Washington Post and you're seeing all these problems there's only one obvious solution: sell access to your journalists for anyone with a sack full of cash.

For $25,000 to $250,000, The Washington Post is offering lobbyists and association executives off-the-record, nonconfrontational access to "those powerful few" — Obama administration officials, members of Congress, and the paper’s own reporters and editors.

The astonishing offer is detailed in a flier circulated Wednesday to a health care lobbyist, who provided it to a reporter because the lobbyist said he feels it’s a conflict for the paper to charge for access to, as the flier says, its “health care reporting and editorial staff."

The offer — which essentially turns a news organization into a facilitator for private lobbyist-official encounters — is a new sign of the lengths to which news organizations will go to find revenue at a time when most newspapers are struggling for survival.

Not to say this isn't completely and totally unethical, I mean who wouldn't want to pay the WaPo $25,000 so you could be in the same room with their neoconservative editorial/columnist crew and a blunt object to beat them with? If there's one thing I've always said about the news it's that the regular citizen has too much attention paid to his or her best interests and opinions in the health care debate. Isn't it time the news elite in this country were forced to consider the concerns of lobbyists and insurance CEO's? What better forum than one that is ethically indistinguishable from prostitution? Strike that: forced prostitution. I'm sure the journalists are thrilled to be doing this.

So if you want access to some of the Post's top minds get your $25,000 out, $250,000 if you want to be a part of the whole series of "Salons." See if an extra couple grand can get those journalists to perform some "French-style" reporting on you, maybe even get two of them to perform a "journalism show" like you saw in the seedy, pasty fleshed ink pits of Bangkok. I'm sure the WaPo is up for it. They really need the money.

Headline of the day: No shit edition

Crackdown In Iran Puts Mousavi in Tight Spot

Wow, stunning insight Washington Post. But I'm curious, what about this whole situation do you think puts him in such a tight spot? Is it the fact that he's leading and uprising against the corrupt government and clerics that fixed an election? Is it that he is the #1 enemy of the military, political, and religious elite who stole the election? Or is it the fact that his facial hair and amount of time he's spent outside make him vulnerable to infestation from the Persian Beard Weevil?

I eagerly await tomorrow's stories "Iranian clerics might not be fully acting with respect to the law", "Questions arise about validity of Ahmadinejad's election", and "Iran may be dangerous and unstable, but I'm not totally sure yet."

R.I.P. Newspapers

Wall Street Journal Only Top 25 Newspaper To Report Circulation Increase

Circulation at the nation's newspapers continues to fall.

The Audit Bureau of Circulations said Monday that average daily circulation declined 7.1 percent in the October-March period from the same six-month span in 2007-2008.

That was faster than the 4.6 percent fall recorded in the April-September period of 2008.

Sunday circulation fell 5.4 percent in the latest period.
...
Newspaper sales have been declining since the early 1990s, but the drop has accelerated in recent years. Circulation revenue has largely held up, though, because of price increases.

Good news. As long as you're a national paper that largely covers one sector of the country (say business/economy) and that sector goes into complete meltdown, then there will be increased interest in your reporting and your circulation numbers will go up.........0.61%. It also helps if you start to move from "right wing" into "crazy right wing" territory. Otherwise your paper drops like a stone as people decide they like reading your newspapers online for free. Maybe another round of price increases, firings of senior reporters, and sending a severed donkey head with a note that say "Thanks" to the guy who created Craigslist will make things all better. Better get that Plan B thing figured out pretty soon, I think things are starting to look dire.

In the small miracles department, the NY Post dropped 20%, the biggest drop in the top 25 papers. Proving that even in a freefalling industry, God does sometimes mete out extra punishment to those who deserve it.

Sorry newspapers, it was nice knowing you. Hopefully you get a business model worked out so we don't have to rely on *shudder* cable TV news *shudder* to break important stories or do investigative journalism. Forget your pig viruses and financial apocalypses, that's the end as we know it.

Dead tree history

The front pages of every US newspaper.

The front pages of the newspapers of the world.

It's quite a sight. I especially liked the Duluth Courier-Gazette-Review which just had a picture of McCain on it with the large headline "FUCKING LOSER".

I do think the Wyoming Frontiersman's headline of "RACE WAR!!!!! Helter Skelter comes to America" to be a tad premature.