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Sarah Palin is a Rock Star
By Dave (Political Machine)
Submitted at 9/3/2008 4:43:00 PM
Filed under: Breaking News, 2008
President, Republican Convention, Sarah
Palin I said it about Obama and now I get
to say it about governor Palin of Alaska.
First let's get the prelims out of the way
as quickly as we can. Huckabee and
Romney were first up and did yeoman
jobs, both clearly auditioning for another
try in 2012 or whatever. And then instead
of a vid bio, we had Lisa Lingle, governor
of Hawaii introducing the Palin story. She
also did a good job, but was an
unspectacular speaker. A video would have
been better. Perhaps there was no time?
And then Giuliani. Rudy rocked the
house. And the house up until that point
frankly, needed some warming up. With
Romney and Huckabee I thought it would
be another Tuesday night, slow and yawny.
But no, Rudy took awhile to get warmed
up but then started laying into Obama. In a
preview of what was to come Rudy started
talking about Obama's experience,
specifically the lack of it. As if to say, you
guys want to talk about experience? Let's
go. Rudy hit the community organizer, the
knock against smallness, the "present"
votes in the Illinois state legislature and
Obama's lack of authorship of any serious
bills in the US Senate.
The crowd ate it up. Rudy is good and he
'Expensive Plans' - New McCain Spot
By Greg McNeilly (Political Machine)
Submitted at 9/4/2008 12:27:00 AM
Filed under: Republicans, Ads, John
McCain, 2008 President John McCain's
campaign has a new attack ad airing in
had them in the palm of his hand. The
crowd wanted hope, the crowd wanted to
fight back and Rudy gave them what they
wanted... a fight. And not only a fight, but
a fight on exactly the same terms as the
DNC had laid out a week earlier.
Experience, hope, change, who was the
real reformer. Again, if McCain's plan was
to go after disaffected Hillary voters, it
wasn't showing here.
And then Palin, and I know, to be honest,
I can't be objective about this. I can't tell
battleground states aimed at Barack
Obama. It's a :30 second spot titled
"Expensive Plans."
Technically, this spot is jointly funded by
the Republican National Committee(RNC)
and the McCain campaign. That also
19/08/08 - 04/09/08
you how the speech will play to Democrats
or anyone who is not a Republican
conservative. But I can tell you how it
played to us. It was awe inspiring. Before
she even started talking, the mood in the
hall was electric. And her family... so nice
and normal looking. I said last week that
Obama fielded cuteness with his kids, a
weapon McCain did not have. Well he
nominated himself some cuteness and it
was there tonight.
To the speech itself, All I can say is it
explains why the spot broadens it aim to
hit congressional Democrats along with
their presidential nominee Barack Obama.
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LibertyNewsprint.com U.S.
Republicans Sing!!
By Mo Rocca (Political Machine)
Submitted at 9/4/2008 4:00:00 AM
that it far exceeded my expectations. She
rocked the house. She gave a stirring line Filed under: Republican Convention Who
for advocacy for special needs kids. She says Republicans don't know how to
body checked Obama more than once and groove? Here is a Perry Como classic, as
smiled the entire time. She talked seriously interpreted by the 2008 Republican
about Iran and the need for energy, she National Convention...
made the case for John McCain on the Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs|
basis of experience and reform, and she did Comments
it with poise.
And that's the key word I'll end with. Jay
Cost called it a few days ago. Said she
needed to have poise and that would make
the difference. Edwards had it, Obama has
it, Sarah Palin has it, Dan Quayle (God
bless him) did not. All of these came on
the national scene with thin resumes but
were (or will be) accepted because of
bearing, confidence and poise. Put Sarah in
that group.
One more final note, on the idea that
McCain would replace Palin. This
convention and most Republicans would
crucify him if he goes anywhere near that
idea. She's on the ticket to stay. If the
speech did nothing for you, you might see
that as a good thing, I can't speak to that. The Politics of Vice
But the GOP is unified around this ticket
with Palin on it. By David Knowles (Political
Permalink| Email this| Linking Blogs| Machine)
Comments Submitted at 9/4/2008 2:28:00 AM
Filed under: Barack Obama, Joe Biden,
Polls, Sarah Palin Via Emily's List:
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Live blog: Google Chrome press conference
By Rafe Needleman for my blow-by-blow commentary. Google
also plans to host a video stream of the
(Webware.com)
conference in two formats: Windows
Submitted at 9/2/2008 10:45:00 AM
Media Player| Real Player.
The official press conference launching See all of CNET's Chrome coverage.
the Chrome browser is scheduled to kick
off at 11 a.m. PDT. See the live blog below
2 Politico* Tech* Tech Tips*
Pit Bull With Lipstick
By David Knowles (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 9/4/2008 1:06:00 AM
Filed under: Featured Stories, Joe Biden,
Republican Convention, Sarah Palin This
is what passes for political discourse in our
country. Joe Biden brags about bloodying
noses of childhood bullies, and Sarah Palin
likens herself to an attack dog. U-S-A! U-S
-A! We love a good cage match, don't we?
Once again, this is why I hate political
conventions. To my mind, pep rallies tend
to bring out the worst of human nature.
The grandstanding, the oversimplification
of complex issues, the outright distortion
and lies: and it works!
So, how'd she do? Did she "hit it out of
the park?" If you like pep rallies, then your
answer is a resounding, "Yes, she did!" (A
phrase best shouted in unison by people
wearing cowboy hats.) Lots of "red meat"
for the base. Like imposing a windfall
profits tax on oil companies. And invoking
Harry Truman. Hey, whose convention is
this, anyway? I guess my question is, who
is this Republican party? What does it
stand for besides "keeping America on
offense" and stripping our enemies of legal
rights?
Who Wrote Palin's Speech?
By David Knowles (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 9/4/2008 3:38:00 AM
Filed under: Bush Administration,
Republican Convention, Sarah Palin
Yesterday, John McCain's campaign
manager told reporters that their camp was
busy tinkering with Sarah Palin's big
speech so that it would be less "
masculine." The speech, you see, had been
written before she'd been picked, for a
man. But who, exactly, wrote it? The
Obama campaign claims it was Bush
speechwriter, Matthew Scully.
Clearly, Palin added her two cents,
biographical details, and delivered the
whole thing with conviction and flair. And,
Domains by Text Checks Domain Names via SMS [Domains]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 7:30:00 AM
What did we learn about Palin's priorities
for our country? That she -- unlike so
many of her Republican colleagues who
attempted to thwart the Americans with
Disabilities Act at every possible turn --
will be an advocate for children with
disabilities. Good. But then why did she
slash the budget for special needs kids in
indeed, most of the speeches we hear from
politicians have been largely ghost-written.
But given the fact that the bulk of Palin's
was prepared in advance, the whole
"Washington outsider" theme seems a bit
undercut. No doubt, Palin is a bona fide
outsider, but she's also being employed to
play the pit bull by a pretty savvy group of
insiders.
If Palin had actually written all of the
portions of the speech that were about
energy, she might have included the
following words, delivered before she'd
met McCain and Bush's handlers:
"We in Alaska feel that crunch and are
taking steps to address it right here at
home," Governor Palin said. "This is a tool
that must be on the table to buy us time
Got a great idea for a new web site
domain name but you're not at a computer?
Send a text message to Domain by Text
Alaska? Maybe, like so many Republicans,
the issue popped onto her radar only after
it became personal. What other
BREAKING NEWS did Palin make? She
thinks we should vote for John McCain
because he was a POW. Dubious. Then,
there were the surreal, near Orwellian
assertions: Palin hates earmarks, even
though she procured 27 million dollars
worth of them for the tiny town of Wasilla.
Palin hates taxes, even though she raised
them on gas and groceries. She carefully
navigated an attack on Obama as raising
taxes on the country, knowing full well
he's calling for a tax cut for all but the
wealthy.
But why quibble with what Palin actually
said, or what kind of vision she has for the
country? She was snarling and mean and
feisty, and (as with Biden's dismal
performance) that's all that seems to really
matter in a presidential surrogate. One
thing is clear. After the litany of taunts, the
outright mockery of her opponents, we can
put to rest the notion that a substantive
counter-attack is the least bit sexist.
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until our long-term energy plans can be put
into place. We have already enjoyed the
support of Alaska Senator Ted Stevens,
and it is gratifying to see Senator Obama
get on board."
And if you were wondering why, during
the "getting to know you" portion of the
speech, Palin didn't elaborate on her role as
the commander of the Alaska National
Guard, it may be because she has never
actually given the guard a single order.
Lastly, many of you are asking: What
about Obama? Time has an interesting
piece on the subject.
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Comments
with a message like IDEANAME
lifehacker at 41411 and get an SMS back
with the availability of that domain. [ via]
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Alaska Poll: Palin is Mrs.
Popularity
By Dave (Political Machine)
Submitted at 9/3/2008 1:22:00 PM
Filed under: 2008 President, Polls, Sarah
Palin RedState:
The McCain team is sending out poll
results from a new American Viewpoint
poll of 400 RVs. The campaign did not
commission this poll.
Job Approval for Gov. Palin: 86%
Among Independents: 86%
Among Democrats: 75%
Overall:
McCain/Palin 57%
Obama/Biden 33%
Among Indies:
McCain/Palin 50%
Obama/Biden 37%
Voters who say Energy is Top Issue:
McCain/Palin 74%
Obama/Biden 18%
Who is more qualified, Palin or Obama:
Palin 30%
Obama 31%
Equal 29%
In Trying To Capture The Moment,
Do We Risk Missing It Altogether?
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 5:47:00 AM
Earlier this year, in writing about a
musician complaining about fans with
mobile phones in the audience, we noted
that he seemed to be overreacting, but did
raise some interesting points about whether
people get so focused on documenting an
event that they miss experiencing it. Now a
columnist at the Toronto Globe & Mail,
Ivor Tossell, makes a similar point in
Does McCain chose of Palin make you
more or less likely to vote for McCain:
More likely 56%
Less likely 15%
The interesting one here is the
qualification question. Apparently 59% of
Alaskans think Governor Palin is as or
more qualified than Barack Obama. And
they should know.
Another shocker, Palin has 75% job
approval... among Democrats in Alaska!
One thing for sure, you don't get these
numbers without taking care of business at
a certain level of competence plus
connecting with the voters at a
fundamental level. When McCain did the
vetting, among other things, these numbers
were uncovered and it was this among her
other attributes that pushed her over the
top ahead of Pawlenty and Jindal (whose
approval numbers are nowhere near).
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Comments
worrying about the effort he goes through
to capture "events" like beautiful sunsets,
when he's not even sure what to do with
the photos afterwards. While much of the
column focuses on the question of whether
or not these digital momentos will last at
all, an equally reasonable question is how
many special moments are "lost" in the
effort of trying to capture them with
recording equipment.
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Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
Palin's Convention Baby
By David Knowles (Political
Machine)
Submitted at 9/3/2008 4:06:00 PM
Filed under: Republican Convention,
Sarah Palin Since we've been warned by
the McCain campaign that Sarah Palin's
family is not to be discussed, why are they
employing their baby like a political prop?
A reader, Debra S., makes a valid point:
Obama did it, too. True enough, but I tend
to side with James Fallows on this one:
Barack Obama has used his family as a
prop from time to time--most recently,
bringing the charming girls onto the stage
at the end of his convention speech. That's
life in politics; everybody does it to some
Post-Gustav, Iran says OPEC may need to cut oil production soon
By Joseph Lazzaro
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 7:20:00 AM
Filed under: Middle East, Commodities,
Oil Just when the oil market gets one storm
out the way, it appears another 'storm' may
be building. And we're not talking about
Tropical Storms Hanna, Ike, or Josephine
in the Atlantic Ocean.
Iran Tuesday said OPEC may need to cut
degree. Very few politicians do it as all-out
as Sarah Palin just did, from citing the
disabilities of her youngest child as part of
her resume to including the shotgun groom
of her elder daughter. I can't recall any
spectacle comparable to Baby Trig being
passed from Cindy McCain to Trig's 7-
year-old sister, to Palin herself when she
ended the speech. Her husband looks
charming, I have to say. From this point on
it will be hard for her to declare anything
about her personal or family life out-of-
bounds.
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Comments
oil supplies by up to 1.5 million barrels per
day to balance what it believes will be a
global market imbalance by early next
year, Reuters reported Tuesday. OPEC will
meet next week in Vienna to discuss oil
production.
Ali Khatibi, Iran's OPEC governor, told
Reuters."The current market is not
balanced, it is oversupplied," adding that
the oversupply cannot continue because it
will hurt oil's price.
Why I took a chance on
Disney
By Jonathan Berr (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 8:30:00 AM
Filed under: Time Warner (TWX), Walt
Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), Stocks to
Buy Ladies and gentleman, this fund
investor grew tired of watching his
family's portfolio get pummeled by double
-digit percentage points and decided to
become a stockholder. So, I snapped up a
tiny position in Walt Disney Co. (NYSE:
DIS).
Before now, I avoided individual equities
for several reasons, including that I was
prohibited from owning them because of
my previous job. I also felt uncomfortable
owning stocks since I write about so many
of them. My financial planner also
discouraged us from taking positions in
individual stocks, saying funds are a better
way to go.
But after taking a quick look at my last
brokerage statement, which showed my
portfolio is down about 10 percent, I soon
got over my unease. I realize that it's
foolish to chase short-term gains but I
thought something had to be done. One of
the funds we owned seemed to be heavily
weighted with gambling and leisure stocks,
a sector that I don't expect to come back
for a while. We got rid of it and added an
Google Chrome Beta Now Available for Download [Google Chrome]
By Gina Trapani (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 5:06:04 AM
Oil fell $6.41 to $109.05 per barrel
Tuesday at mid-day. Earlier in the day oil
had fallen to as low as $105.46 after
reports indicated oil companies were
preparing to resume production from rigs
Politico* Business* Tech* Tech Tips*
ETF that covers the tech sector, which
should be among the first to rebound once
the economy starts to improve. Still, I
wondered if I could do better.
Disney caught my eye a year ago when I
labeled it a"slacker stock" because it was
such an underachiever. The shares have
barely budged this year, moving down
about 3%, which in the current market is
not bad. Moreover, Disney is
outperforming peers such as Viacom Inc.
(NYSE: VIA) and Time Warner
Inc.(NYSE: TWX), both of which are
down double digits. The stock is trading at
forward multiple of 13, which appears
cheap to me considering it's lower than
Time Warner and unlike Viacom pays a
dividend.
Continue reading Why I took a chance
on Disney Read| Permalink| Email this|
Comments
Google's made their new beta web
browser Chrome available for
download(Windows only). We'll publish
closed by Hurricane Gustav, Bloomberg
News reported Tuesday.
Economist: OPEC supply cut 'would be a
mistake'
Economist David H. Wang told
BloggingStocks Tuesday now is not the
time for OPEC to consider a production
cut. "We have all three major economic
regions of the world, U.S., Europe, Asia,
decelerating, in good part due to the sky-
high oil prices of the past two years. Now,
3
Was The Mad Men
Twitter Takedown Part Of
An Advertising Strategy?
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 7:03:04 AM
We've talked about the concept of a
reverse Streisand Effect, where a company
purposely pretends to be outraged and
demands to take something down in order
to generate more attention for it, and now
there's some evidence suggesting that last
week's DMCA takedown notices for the
"fake" Mad Men Twitter accounts may
have been part of AMC's own marketing
strategy. Buried at the bottom of a NY
Times article about what happened, there's
a hint that the whole thing was planned
out, as following a request from the Times
reporter, Brian Stelter, to one of the "fake"
users for an interview, that character
"referred all questions to Deep Focus, a
Web marketing agency that works for
AMC."
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our full review post-haste; in the
meantime, go check it out yourself.
just went we get some relief, OPEC says
it's time to cut production?" Wang said.
"It's way too premature to think about a
production cut. We haven't seen Q3 oil
consumption statistics from Asia yet. They
could show an increase, which would be
bullish for prices."
Continue reading Post-Gustav, Iran says
OPEC may need to cut oil production soon
Permalink| Email this| Comments
4 Business* Tech* Tech Tips*
Closing bell: Dow loses General Electric (GE)
early gains; AAPL, DELL, likely to hold onto NBC -
MER, LEH all down Vivendi CEO
By Douglas McIntyre
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 9:16:00 AM
Filed under: After the bell, Apple Inc
(AAPL), Cisco Systems (CSCO), Dell
(DELL), Intel (INTC), Market matters,
Merrill Lynch (MER), Lehman Br
Holdings (LEH)
Today was supposed to be the day of
days for stocks. Oil collapsed by $6 on
news that Hurricane Gustav had done
relatively little damage to oil facilities. The
major indexes opened up nearly 2%.
Stocks tied to fuel prices, especially
airlines and auto shares, spiked.
A little after midway through the
afternoon, it began to dawn on traders that
less expensive oil does not solve the
problems of falling employment and weak
spending by consumers and businesses.
Suddenly, the numbers on Wall Street
turned red.
Dow: 11,515.46 (-.24%)
NASDAQ: 2,349.39 (-.77%)
S&P 500 1,277.35 (-.43%)
10-Year Note 2.7460 (-.0670)
52-Week Lows
Despite rumors of a large investment
from the Korea Development Bank,
Lehman(NYSE: LEH) moved from a big
gain to trading flat to down at the close.
Investors must still think the mortgage and
American cars continue to lose ground to imports
By Michael Rainey (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 7:55:00 AM
Filed under: Ford Motor (F), General
Motors (GM), Toyota Motor Corp. (TM)
Sales of vehicles from Detroit's Big Three
have been weak and getting weaker lately.
But the bad news is even worse when you
look at just basic passenger cars.
According to a piece in
BusinessWeek(appropriately titled "Car
Sick"), American products accounted for
credit crisis has a long way to go. Merrill
Lynch(NYSE: MER) dropped 3%.
Ambac(NYSE: ABK), which has
recovered from its lows of a month ago,
also sold down 1%.
Just a few weeks back, tech was the one
sector that was going to hold its own.
Consumer electronics spending and IT
investment by companies were not going
to be undercut by slowing GDP. That was
true until Dell(NASDAQ: DELL) reported
weak numbers last week. It sold off 3%
and mega-cap techs Apple(NASDAQ:
AAPL), Cisco(NASDAQ: CSCO), and
Intel(NASDAQ: INTC) all dropped.
It will be interesting to see what happens
on a day when oil goes back up.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 24/7
Wall St. Read| Permalink| Email this|
Comments
less than a third of all car sales in July, a
new low for the industry.
In July, imports grabbed 68% of
passenger car sales in the U.S., leaving
General Motors(NYSE: GM), Ford(NYSE:
F) and Chrysler with only 32%. And some
of that meager number include fleet sales
to rental agencies, which produce very
slim profits. Factoring those out,
BusinessWeek estimates that Detroit's
share of the American passenger car
market is about 25%.
By Brent Archer (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 6:15:00 AM
Filed under: Major movement, Deals,
Good news, General Electric (GE),
Options, Technical Analysis General
Electric(NYSE: GE- option chain) shares
are soaring higher today due to a number
of factors such as sinking oil futures, but
also on comments from Vivendi CEO Jean
-Bernard Levy. Levy said in an interview
with the Financial Times that he has heard
GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt say several times
both privately and publicly that GE has no
intention of selling its 80% of NBC
Universal. Levy may have more
information that the average investor on
this matter since Vivendi owns the
remaining 20% of NBC. If you think that
the stock won't fall by too much in the
coming months, then now could be a good
time to look at a bullish hedged trade on
NBC.
GE opened this morning at $28.54. So
Compact Academic Calendar Excel Template [Calendar]
By Gina Trapani (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 5:00:00 AM
Professor James Mitchell modified Dave
Seah's popular compact calendar for
One stunning illustration of just how bad
things are: in July, GM's entire Buick
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
far today the stock has hit a low of $28.53
and a high of $29.10. As of 12:25, GE is
trading at $29.10, up $0.94 (3.4%). The
chart for GE looks bullish and S&P gives
GE a positive 4 STARS (out of 5) buy
ranking.
For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I
would consider a December bull-put credit
spread below the $24 range. A bull-put
credit spread is an options position that
combines the purchase and sale of put
options to hedge risk in case the stock
doesn't do what you think but still leverage
nice returns. For this particular trade, we
will make a 9.9% return in just three and a
half months as long as GE is above $24 at
December expiration. GE would have to
fall by more than 17% before we would
start to lose money. Learn more about this
type of trade here.
Continue reading General Electric (GE)
likely to hold onto NBC - Vivendi CEO
Permalink| Email this| Comments
students. The result is the Compact
Academic Calendar Excel Template,
which starts in September 2008 and goes
till September 2009 and provides a small,
paper way to block out long-term
division sold just 6,000 cars. Compare that
to just one Toyota model, the Camry,
which sold over 42,000 units in the same
period. And there are roughly 2,700 Buick
dealers, about twice the Toyota figure,
which means that on average each Buick
dealer sold 2.2 cars during the month. You
have to wonder how they manage to stay
open.
It's no secret how this situation came
about. The Big Three bet their collective
house on trucks and SUVs in the 1990s,
Once Again, Court Says
Telco Can't Force
Arbitration Over A Lawsuit
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 9:51:00 AM
This is hardly the first time we've seen
such a case. In fact, the issue of whether or
not companies can force their consumers to
go to binding arbitration (which sides with
the company somewhere around 95% of
the time) over filing a class action lawsuit
has been decided in favor of the
consumers' rights to file the lawsuits over
and over and over again. So, it shouldn't
come as a huge surprise that a court has
told AT&T that it cannot force customers
into binding arbitration rather than a class
action lawsuit over bogus fees it charged.
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assignments and projects. The compact
calendar template is a free download. [ via]
not cars, and now they are paying the price
of that unwise gamble. Despite the arrival
of decent (though hardly stellar) cars like
the Chevy Malibu and the Ford Focus,
American passenger cars have a long way
to go before they can once again sustain
the American auto industry. Permalink|
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Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
The Dark Knight's success This dollar rally may have Tiffany Net
could mean trouble for the legs
next Batman movie
By Steven Mallas (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 6:35:00 AM
Filed under: Time Warner (TWX), Walt
Disney (DIS), Viacom (VIA), Sony Corp
ADR (SNE), News Corp'B' (NWS), Film
Well, it's happened. Time Warner's
(NYSE: TWX) The Dark Knight reached
$500 million. According to
Boxofficemojo.com, the blockbuster's total
tally stands at roughly $504 million as of
this writing. Shareholders in the famous
media company should be pretty darn
happy, especially considering that the
DVD will certainly be a big hit during the
holiday season.
Yet, I have to wonder if there is a dark
side to this monumental achievement. I
mean, you do have to ask yourself whether
Time Warner could possibly produce a
follow-up to Knight. The success of the
current flick means that all the Comic-Con
geeks out there are going to demand a
storyline that blows the pants off Knight.
Who knows if that's possible (and I should
point out that I, for one, wasn't impressed
with Knight, and thought that the hype
generated by it was irrational).
And if Time Warner isn't able to please
its core audience, could it manage to
General Motors to continue employee pricing
By Jonathan Berr (BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 9:57:00 AM
Filed under: Products and services,
General Motors (GM), Marketing and
advertising General Motors Corp.(NYSE:
GM) will offer customers wanting to buy
its cars the same discounts as employees
for another four weeks, according to
Bloomberg News.
The incentives, on most 2008 and some
2009 models, were to have expired today
but, according to Bloomberg, "GM will
Works
convince mainstream audiences that the
film is worth a shot? A movie doesn't
reach $500 million with just the core
demographic, of course. When people see
big numbers flowing in from the first
couple weekends, and subsequently hear
about fans seeing a project multiple times,
it instills interest in these other
demographics, ones that are outside the
target audience. This is how a phenomenon
is made. And I think repeating such a feat
represents a difficulty of the highest order.
Continue reading The Dark Knight's
success could mean trouble for the next
Batman movie Read| Read| Permalink|
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continue the deals through the end of the
month because the initial two-week offer
boosted sales."
Of course, this is great news for
consumers, particularly the few who are
confident enough in their economic
circumstances to be in the market for a
new car. Maybe it will encourage people
leaning toward a Honda(NYSE: HMC) or
some other foreign automaker to give GM
a second look or even a third one. Chances
are, though, it won't do much to help.
As my colleague Michael Rainey noted
By Joseph Lazzaro
(BloggingStocks)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 6:55:00 AM
Filed under: Forecasts, Other issues,
Federal Natl Mtge (FNM), Federal Reserve
The comeback of the beleaguered dollar
continues.
The dollar strengthened to a six-month
high versus the euro Tuesday, and also
rose against the world's other major
currencies on a growing consensus in
foreign exchange circles that global
economic fundamentals are shifting in
favor of the greenback.
The dollar strengthened about 1.5 cents
to $1.4465 versus the euro, and about 1.4
cents to $1.7877 versus the British pound
Tuesday at mid-day. The buck also gained
one-half yen to 108.62 versus Japan's yen.
Pivotal for dollar: Europe, Asia GDP
Further, although Tuesday's dollar
catalyst was the realization that Hurricane
Gustav would cause considerably less-than
-forecast damage to Southeast U.S. oil
production and the refinery infrastructure,
trader Andrew Resnick told
BloggingStocks the longer-term focus
remains regional GDP growth.
"With Hurricane Gustav out of the way,
sentiment's building that this dollar rally
has legs. European growth has slowed to
recession levels, and China's economy has
slowed as well. For Europe, lower interest
rates are likely to follow, and that's dollar
earlier, imports accounted for 68% of all
passenger car sales in the U.S., a new low
for the Big Three. These are the vehicles
bullish," Resnick said. Resnick added that
he expects the Bank of England to cut its
benchmark interest rate by a quarter-point
to 4.75% when it meets September 4. He
doesn't expect the European Central Bank
to lower its 4.25% refinance rate on
September 4, but that stand-pat policy may
change to accommodation, later this fall.
Continue reading This dollar rally may
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Comments
that consumers stung by high gas prices
are most interested in purchasing. Good
luck in trading in your gas-guzzling SUV
for a fuel-efficient hybrid. Many dealers
are reportedly no longer interested in the
big vehicles because their trade-in value
has plummeted.
Continue reading General Motors to
continue employee pricing Read|
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Business* Biz Buzz 5
(Portfolio.com: News and Markets)
Submitted at 8/28/2008 5:30:00 AM
The rich are different than you and me.
For one, many of them are in Asia.
And that's a good thing for Tiffany &
Co. The luxury jeweler has reported
quarterly earnings and sales that sharply
exceeded forecasts.
The gain came on the back of strong
sales growth overseas—in Europe but
especially in Asia. Net sales in that part of
the world jumped 17 percent to $214.2
million in the quarter, even amid
weakness.
Even sales growth in the United States
reflected foreign demand in part. Its
flagship Manhattan store, which accounts
for 10 percent of its total sales had sales
growth of 5 percent in the quarter
"reflecting increased spending by non-U.S.
visitors," the company said.
Total revenue grew 11 percent in the
quarter, to $732.4 million.
The company increased its profit forecast
for the year based on expectations for
continued strong growth from Asia
(outside of Japan) and Europe.
"While we acknowledge that challenging
economic and consumer conditions exist in
the U.S., as they have for several quarters,
our first-half results and the most recent
worldwide trends keep us on track to meet
our full-year sales and earnings growth
expectations," said Michael Kowalski,
Tiffany's chief executive.
Yet there are signs that the slowdown in
the United States is finally having more of
an impact on other economies, as Peter S.
Goodman of the New York Times detailed
on Saturday. Even the red-hot economies
of China and India are cooling a bit.
A greater impact for Tiffany may be felt
if the dollar continues its recent rally,
keeping tourists away from the Manhattan
store and eroding the company's margins
on overseas sales.
Even the wealthy have their price points.
Related Links
Bright Big Blue
Russian Guessing
Summer's Swoon Is Back
6 Biz Buzz Gadgets*
Ladies' Nights
(Portfolio.com: News and Markets)
Submitted at 9/1/2008 9:00:00 PM
I n the beginning, Starbuck was a man.
The cocky, cigar-chomping lead of the
1970s science-fiction TV show Battlestar
Galactica was known for his fighter-pilot
skills and having a thing for the ladies.
But when the Sci Fi Channel brought the
show back in 2004, Sci Fi exec Dave
Howe and series creator Ronald Moore
made a radical call: They turned Starbuck
into a woman.
PromoModule Howe says this decision
and others like it—changing another main
character to a woman and making the U.S.
president in the show female—were made
to increase the show’s appeal to women, as
well as to signal that the new series wasn’t
simply going to be a remake of the old one.
“We’re selling adults 18 to 54”—not just
men, says Howe. By neglecting female
viewers, Sci Fi was “potentially cutting off
half our revenue stream.”
Even those initial decisions, however,
weren’t enough to overcome the show’s
traditional appeal to men, and barely a
third of the show’s viewers were women
by the start of the second season. So Howe
and the show’s producers and writers made
even more changes, renewing the focus on
Starbuck and her romantic relationships,
adding in several other strong female
characters, and scaling back on the show’s
violence. Gradually more women started to
tune in, and the show’s fourth season
premiere in April delivered a record 1.1
million female viewers. For the season,
almost 40 percent of the show’s viewers
have been women.
Dumping Fannie
(Portfolio.com: News and Markets)
Submitted at 8/29/2008 5:00:00 AM
Shares of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
have been riding a wave of optimism in the
last week. Several analysts have estimated
that the mortgage giants have sufficient
capital for the year, and a management
shakeup at Fannie has helped bolster
investors' confidence.
Indeed, since last week, shares of Fannie
have risen 60 percent.
Yet while stock investors in the United
As more and more shows compete for a
dwindling television audience, aggressive
efforts like Howe’s to woo female viewers
have become common, especially since
many female viewers of original
programming tend to be more affluent. (
Battlestar Galactica’s female fans, for
example, have a median income of
$68,000, $20,000 higher than the
network’s overall median income.) Indeed,
the number of shows on cable featuring
strong female central characters is
unprecedented. Among the shows that
have become hits for their networks in
recent years are TNT’s The Closer, about a
female police chief played by Kyra
Sedgwick; Saving Grace starring Holly
Hunter as a police detective; USA’s In
Plain Sight about a female U.S. marshal
with the Witness Protection Program
played by Mary McCormack; F/X’s
Damages starring Glenn Close as a
calculating lawyer; and Lifetime’s Army
Wives about a group of women living on
an Army post.
“There are shows now, for the first time
in many, many years, that have women
front and center,” says Bonnie Hammer,
the president of NBC Universal Cable
Entertainment who heads up both the USA
Network and the Sci Fi Channel. Hammer
was involved in making Battlestar
Galactica more female-friendly, and as the
head of the USA Network, she developed
In Plain Sight.
Kris Magel, the director of national
broadcast at Initiative Media, a media and
marketing company in New York, says
that while certain shows and networks
have always sought to appeal to women,
States may be more optimistic, some
important debt investors are not.
The Bank of China, one of China's four
big commercial banks, has cut its holdings
of Fannie and Freddie securities by more
than a quarter, from nearly $11 billion at
the end of June, report Saskia Scholtes and
James Politi of the Financial Times.
It's just one institution, to be sure, but it
is a dangerous sign. Foreign institutions, in
particular Asian central banks and state-
run banks like the Bank of China, have
been the main customers for Fannie and
the use of original programming with
strong female leads and women-friendly
story lines is a new strategy that’s paid
dividends for the cable networks producing
them.
“These shows are doing really good
ratings against a more upscale female
audience,” Magel says, pointing out that
original programming tends to attract
pickier TV viewers that are harder to reach
and thus more valuable to advertisers.
PromoModule High-quality original
programs on cable can charge as much as
two-thirds of what prime-time broadcast
shows do for advertising, according to
industry sources.
Among women 18 to 54, In Plain Sight
attracts significantly higher-income
viewers, according to USA. The show
attracts female viewers with household
incomes $5,000 higher than the network’s
median for women that age, $53,000. For
the same group, the median income of the
audience for USA’s The Starter Wife, a
miniseries about a woman whose husband
leaves her for a younger woman that’s
slated to become a regular series in the fall,
was even higher at $68,000.
“ Army Wives is another example” of a
show, with strong female characters, that
women respond to, says Andrea Wong,
president of Lifetime, the grande dame in a
group of cable channels, including Oxygen
and WE tv, designed to appeal specifically
to women. Among Lifetime viewers who
make over $75,000, the ratings for Army
Wives are seven times higher than
Lifetime’s average viewing audience.
Wong cites recent Army Wives story
lines, including one about a woman who
Freddie debt and securities. That flood of
foreign cash helped lubricate the boom in
housing and credit that has since become a
bust.
Even amid the credit storm of the last
year, foreign investors have largely hung
on to Fannie and Freddie paper. But fears
of a Treasury Department bailout of the
two government-sponsored corporations
may have proved too ominous to keep the
faith. Bloomberg News has noted that
Japanese investors have been big sellers of
Fannie and Freddie securities.
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
was worried about her professional future
after finding out that she was pregnant and
another about a character who was in an
accident but didn’t have health care, as
evidence that much cable programming “is
evolving” in terms of serving women.
Even as female audiences are becoming
more coveted, women are dominating the
executive ranks of many cable networks.
In addition to Hammer and Wong, other
prominent female cable execs include
Bravo’s president, Lauren Zalaznick,
AMC’s head of scripted original
programming Christina Wayne, and HBO
Entertainment president Sue Naegle (see
our head-to-head comparison of the
programming chiefs at the major cable
networks).
“We know our audience well because 52
percent of the viewing audience is
women,” says Lifetime’s Wong.
As for Dave Howe at the Sci Fi Channel,
he says he plans to continue making
changes to increase the network’s female
appeal. “We are looking at everything
from marketing to programming, ensuring
we appeal to women as much as we appeal
to men,” he says.
And if that means balancing out
spaceships and aliens with more character
d e v e l o p m e n t a n d
relationships—everything that Howe calls
the “more touchy-feely stuff”—so be it.
Related Links
Drama Queen
Saving TV
Zuckervision
New blood and the hope of new capital
are apparently not enough to stop a
growing squeamish in Beijing, Tokyo,
Singapore, and elsewhere over U.S.
mortgage debt. And that will make
Fannie's and Freddie's efforts to roll over
some $223 billion of securities by the end
of next month that much more difficult.
Citing Federal Reserve data, the
Financial Times says that it appears that
foreign investors are buying Treasury
securities at the same time they are
trimming their holdings of Fannie, Freddie,
PSP-3000 battery life
diminished by new screen,
Sony suggests buying a
bigger battery
By Joshua Topolsky (Engadget)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:58:00 PM
Filed under: Gaming
According to a GameSpot interview with
Sony's US director of hardware marketing
John Koller, that new PSP-3000 screen
may look a bit better... but it's going to cost
you about 20 minutes of battery life.
Luckily for you gamers with endless
pockets out there, Koller assures that
minor wrinkle be offset because, "We're
going to have the extended life battery
that's still available for consumers, so we're
still going to get the eight-to-ten hours out
of that battery." So just to make that clear,
the regular battery life will be diminished,
but you can buy a new, larger battery from
Sony to extend your gaming time. Got
that? Good. Watch him say it for real in the
video after the break.
[Via T3]
Continue reading PSP-3000 battery life
diminished by new screen, Sony suggests
buying a bigger battery Read| Permalink|
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and government agency debt.
The Calculated Risk blog speculates that
this selling may explain "why the spread
between Fannie and Freddie debt yields
and Treasury debt is so high."
Or perhaps investors have just seen this
video.
Related Links
Fannie's Fatalities
Cue the Optimists
When Bill Met Freddie
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
Life, Death and New Drugs
(Portfolio.com: News and Markets)
Submitted at 8/29/2008 7:30:00 AM
Amylin's recent woes with its new
diabetes drug, Byetta—six people have
died, possibly as a result of taking the
drug—raises a crucial question that has
long vexed companies and patients about
the medications we take for what ails us.
What is an acceptable trade-off between
drugs that help millions of people living
with chronic conditions such as
diabetes—or pain or heart disease—but
hurt or kill a few?
It's the pharmaceutical industry's version
of the old moral dilemma of whether it is
acceptable to sacrifice a few to save many.
It's akin to what a person would do if he
saw a crowd of people about to be hit by a
speeding train. It's too late to warn them
off the tracks, but he could throw a switch
and divert the train to a siding—where a
single person is standing and would almost
certainly be killed.
What would you do?
In the case of Byetta, the millions of
people who use it won't die if they don't
take it, and there are alternatives. Yet for
many patients with non-insulin-dependent
diabetes (type 2 diabetes), other medicines
don't control their glucose levels as well as
Byetta; that can lead to declining health.
Should they be denied this treatment to
save a handful of people who contracted
severe pancreatitis, an inflammation of the
pancreas that is sometimes fatal?
A more spectacular recent case is the
painkiller Vioxx, which was blamed in the
heart-attack deaths of thousands of people
with heart disease. Merck, its maker,
voluntarily withdrew Vioxx from the
market, even though millions of people
had taken the drug safely and benefited
from it.
Another example is cerivastatin, a
cholesterol-lowering drug that Bayer
introduced in the late 1990s to compete
with Pfizer's Lipitor. Bayer voluntarily
pulled the drug in 2001 after it was linked
Sonim LM801 isn't a Sonim at all, XP1 still in the mix
By Chris Ziegler (Engadget)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 11:52:00 AM
Filed under: Cellphones
It's still a rugged little bastard -- and yes,
to 52 deaths due to renal failure and to
other, nonlethal complications. This was
after the Food and Drug Administration
had ordered warnings issued to patients
and physicians, warnings that failed to
stem the fatalities.
Regulators took similar steps with
Byetta. In 2007, the F.D.A. ordered
Amylin to place information about the
dangers of pancreatitis in the drug's insert.
It warned that patients should immediately
tell their doctors if they experience
abdominal pain while taking the drug. This
step was in reaction to a small number of
people getting sick before anyone had
died.
In the wake of the deaths, the F.D.A.
says it wants the warning strengthened.
The agency says it will monitor the drug
closely over the next few months, looking
for further deaths.
Amylin and its partner, Eli Lilly, insist
that there is no direct proof the patients
died because of Byetta. Diabetics have a
three-times-greater risk of pancreatitis than
nondiabetics.
Investors were spooked nonetheless.
Amylin's share price dropped nearly 23
percent when news of the deaths was
released. Byetta accounts for 80 percent of
the company's revenues.
Drug-company scientists and executives
complain that when balancing risks and
rewards, the bar is often too high for drugs
that are effective for many people but toxic
for a few.
One executive, an expert in vaccines,
once told me that scientists had come up
with a way to inoculate people against
H.I.V. but have declined to go public
because the vaccines will kill five percent
of those who take it.
"Is this worth it to the other 95 percent?"
he asked, adding that he wasn't sure how
he felt about such an equation. "What if it
was one percent?" he mused.
Vaccines already in use cause a
relatively small number of deaths each
year; that is considered an acceptable risk
it still has a laser pointer -- but there's one
thing the LM801 cellphone is not: a
Sonim. The CEO of Sonim, maker of the
purposefully overbuilt XP1, wrote in on
our LM801 piece to let us know that they
given the alternative of widespread viral
illness.
Other familiar drugs cause deaths now
and then as well, including even aspirin if
susceptible people take too much. Yet no
one talks about removing aspirin from
shelves.
Society also accepts much larger
numbers of fatalities and injuries while
using other products, such as automobiles,
which annually kill more than 40,000
people.
Yet for those whose loved ones die
because of a drug, any risk of death is too
great, of course.
One way to improve drug outcomes is to
better define who is susceptible to harm.
This is one of the issues with Vioxx, which
apparently was safe for many people to use
that didn't have a heart condition.
There is evidence Merck was aware of
the danger its drug posed to a subset of
those taking it; in any case, the company
did not follow through on that information,
which might have shrunk its market—and
profits.
In the wake of the Vioxx fiasco, the
dilemma of what risk is too much
prompted Congress to require that the
F.D.A. more closely monitor drugs after
approval. Some believe a fear of repeating
that mistake is one reason that regulators
are approving so few drugs. Last year, the
F.D.A. approved only 17 new drugs, a near
-record low.
So we will wait to see which way Byetta
goes. Will these six deaths in three years
be anomalies, or will others succumb?
Have there already been too many deaths
for a drug that may be better than others
for some, but not dramatically? Or is the
trade-off so far worth it? Related Links
HPV Vaccine Inspires Yellow Health
Journalism
Mounting Troubles for Big Pharma
Diabetes Deal for Medco
don't actually have any association with
Gossip Nation
(Portfolio.com: News and Markets)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 1:30:00 PM
F resh off summer vacation, Gossip
Girl—the CW's hit show featuring pretty,
pampered teens at a Manhattan private
school—looks to have returned bigger and
gossipier than ever.
Monday night's season two premiere
scored 3.4 million viewers, making it the
show's second-most-watched episode ever,
trailing only last September's series
premiere, according to the network.
PromoModule Tonight, the CW may
have an even bigger test: trying to get
people to watch the second generation of
90210—a new show that's crucial to
rounding out the network's empty-caloried
but oh-so-yummy programming.
For now though, making Gossip Girl’ s
dominance even sweeter for the executives
at the CW—the network formed in 2006 as
a joint venture between CBS and Warner
Bros.—is that it's happening in prime time,
and not online.
Last season, online episodes of the show
that viewers could stream and watch at any
time did so well executives feared they
were cannibalizing the show's prime-time
viewership.
The network went so far as to cancel the
streamed episodes, hoping that the show's
average audience of 2 million would rise
accordingly.
Later, the word slipped out that the
online episodes would, after all, be back
this fall. And although the online version
of the series premiere won't be available
Condurro, the company advertising it. If
anything, the LM801 is actually a direct
competitor for Sonim's wares -- and at
£149.99 (about $270) at retail, it's bringing
the heat. Assuming it actually lives up to
Biz Buzz Gadgets* 7
until later this week, strong appetite for the
premiere on the small screen probably
translates to strong demand online, where
every broadcast network is trying to
cultivate a base of avid, engaged, young
fans.
With Gossip Girl, the CW can, it seems,
have its Diet Coke and drink it too.
Gossip Girl’ s audience on Monday was
especially impressive given that the season
opener aired during a holiday weekend,
presumably before many of its target
audience members—late teens and
twentysomethings—had settled back into
their fall routines.
Combined with ratings for the start of the
sixth season of One Tree Hill, the CW's
long-running teen drama, the Gossip Girl
premiere helped deliver the CW's best
Monday night numbers ever, with a 2.3
rating among adults 18 to 34, and a 3.3
among women 18 to 34, the network's key
demographic. It won the night for female
viewers in that bracket.
All of which is good news for a network
that has yet to deliver a megahit during its
first two seasons on air. The next chapter
for the CW unfolds tonight, when the
reinvented version of 90210 airs.
If that premiere tanks, despite Monday
night's success, the network's future could
well come under renewed scrutiny. And
that's gossip too juicy for the CW to
ignore.
Related Links
'New York' Happy to Run 'Bad' 'Gossip
Girl' Ad
its tough look, anyway. Read| Permalink|
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8 Biz Buzz Tech*
White-Collar Cringe
(Portfolio.com: News and Markets)
Submitted at 8/29/2008 5:30:00 AM
The Justice Department has announced
the death of the Thompson memo, the
guidelines of tactics used by prosecutors to
combat white-collar crime since 2003.
The real question is: Why now?
The Justice Department is in a lame-duck
period. Washington is in an election-year
transition, as one party wraps up its
convention and the other prepares to begin
its own.
As William Burroughs once wrote: There
are no coincidences.
Consider what happened on Thursday.
First, the United States Court of Appeals
for the Second Circuit affirmed a
controversial opinion by a Manhattan
federal judge who dismissed the
indictments of defendants in the KPMG
tax-shelter case because he found that a
prosecution tactic sanctioned by the
Thompson memorandum—giving
preference to companies that halt legal fees
t o e m p l o y e e s u n d e r
investigation—violated the employee's
constitutional right to representation by
counsel.
Not long afterward, the Justice
Department held a news
conference—fittingly, at the New York
Stock Exchange, which is why federal
prosecutors in Manhattan get the lion's
share of corporate-crime
cases—announcing changes to its methods.
The revised guidelines outline how
prosecutors will credit—or not
credit—corporations and individuals who
The Lehman Deal That Won't Die
(Portfolio.com: News and Markets)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 5:30:00 AM
There may still be some translation
issues, but after seemingly going back and
forth on the question, the Korea
Development Bank has confirmed that it is
in talks with Lehman Brothers over a
possible investment, Reuters reports.
A major stake by the deep-pocketed state
-run bank would be a huge boost for
Lehman, which has been under pressure to
raise capital as it prepares to report what
are expected to be dismal quarterly results.
chose to cooperate with their criminal
investigations. (The tactic cited in the
KPMG case had already been abandoned
by Justice.)
The most significant of the new changes
is credit for cooperation will not, in the
future, depend on the corporation's waiver
of the attorney-client privilege—meaning
that the advice of a lawyer is now
sacrosanct, once again, as it always should
have been.
"Of course, I find it absolutely amazing
that it comes out on exactly the same day,
says Ellen Podgor, a professor at Stetson
University College of Law and author of
the White Collar Crime Prof Blog. "I think
it's kind of sad that they waited until this
case was coming out."
The 68-page opinion in the KPMG case
is damning in its iteration of how lawyers
from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher &
Flom—highly paid and not otherwise
known as marshmallows—became the
"agents" of the government prosecutors.
Representing the accounting firm
KPMG, itself under threat of indictment,
the Skadden lawyers "assumed a supine
position," according to the opinion.
When none other than Robert Bennett,
the Washington powerhouse lawyer,
informed the prosecutors of the firm's
tentative decision to cap the legal fees of
its employees, the prosecutors were
"disappointed," and KPMG sent out a form
to employees, based on the government's
language, that they should feel free to
cooperate with prosecutors without the
assistance of counsel.
Over the following year, prosecutors
Two weeks ago, K.D.B. had been
reportedly close to taking a 50 percent
stake in Lehman, but the talks broke down
over price.
Then a spokesman for the bank said it
was still interested in Lehman, but South
Korean officials sought to pour cold water
on the idea, indicating it was opposed to a
large investment.
(K.D.B. was created by the government
in 1954 to foster development as South
Korea was emerging from war. It is on
track to be privatized by 2012.)
It is unclear what, if anything, has
informed Skadden whenever a KPMG
employee refused to cooperate fully.
Yep, supine sounds like the right word
At the Justice Deparment's news
conference, Deputy Attorney General
Mark R. Filip said the new rules, which
will be placed into the United States
Attorneys' manual, rather than just a
memo, have the force of "binding law" and
"binding fact."
Well, professor Podgor disagrees. While
she says it is "significant" that the new
rules will be put into the manual handed to
every new federal prosecutor—a book that
Filip called the "bible" for the Justice
Department troops— Podgor pointed out:
"It's strictly guidance." In fact, she said, the
manual "explicitly states" that the rules in
it are "not enforceable as law and not to be
used by third parties."
So much for change. For Podgor, and
many other criminal-defense advocates,
the only change that will come is with
legislation putting into federal law the right
to these privileges during a criminal
investigation.
But don't count on Justice's support.
Several times during the press conference,
Filip reiterated the Justice Department's
opposition to such legislation.
But there may be change coming in
another way. It is an election year.
Related Links
Tax-Shelter Case Torn Down
Tearing Down a Tax Shelter
The "It's Your Fault I Was Wrong"
Defense
changed that could make a deal doable.
Lehman clearly would like to attract a
major investor. It has also been talking to
Citic Securities of China and sovereign
wealth funds from Abu Dhabi and Qatar,
the Daily Telegraph says.
K.D.B. may see an opportunity in
Lehman's distressed share price.
Presumably, its chief executive has a better
window into the firm than other investors,
having led Lehman's operations in South
Korea until earlier this year.
Much is at stake, contends Yves Smith at
Naked Capitalism:
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
$100 Oil (Return Flight)
(Portfolio.com: News and Markets)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:30:00 AM
Futures prices for crude oil are sliding
back toward $100 a barrel. The threshold
sent off alarms when it was broken at the
start of the year.
Today's pullback is over relief that
Hurricane Gustav did not wreck oil rigs
and refineries by the Gulf of Mexico. Yet
it will reignite the debate over whether the
long rally in energy has been justified by
fundamentals. Is the retreat a sign that the
speculative froth in the market is now
coming off?
Also on Portfolio:
Crude Realities
A look at the leading producers and
consumers of oil.
Pumping for Answers
Why reporters are not asking the right
questions about energy.
In New York, the near-month futures
contract for light, sweet West Texas
Intermediate crude fell 4.55 percent, to
close at $110.21. That is its lowest level in
almost five months, Bloomberg News said.
In London trading, price fell further.
Crude oil for October delivery fell nearly 9
percent, to $105.46. That is the lowest it
has been since April 4, Bloomberg reports.
The decline came amid signs that energy
companies were preparing to resume
operations in the Gulf.
"Failure to cinch a deal with K.D.B. or a
K.D.B.-led group would be a serious blow,
since it would suggest either that Lehman's
price expectations were unrealistic, that
K.D.B. made some due-diligence
discoveries that changed its view or
valuation, or that Lehman would not give
the reps and warranties that K.D.B.
sought."
Related Links
Daily Dose of Lehman Conjecture
Crude oil, which had been heading
toward $150 a barrel this summer, has
fallen back as the dollar has strengthened
and amid growing signs that global
demand is slowing. Even the Russian
invasion of Georgia, home to major
pipelines of oil from the Caspian Sea
region, caused only a minor blip in the
market.
"The market continues to be weighed
down by worries of a global economic
downturn and slowing oil demand in
developing markets," Victor Shum, an
energy analyst with the consulting firm
Purvin & Gertz in Singapore, told the
BBC.
But don't expect a return to the days of
cheap energy. The economies of China and
India may be slowing a bit, but they are
still growing and their per capita
consumption of energy is a fraction of that
of Americans. Demand will only increase.
And production is not going to increase
anytime soon. Members of OPEC meet
next week in Vienna, and they are
expected to hold the line on current output
quotas. One member, Iran, has been calling
for a cut in production, citing the recent
slide in oil prices.
Related Links
The Oil Rush
Leap Day for Oil and Euro
Crude Awakening
Opening Amazon's
Walled Garden
Could Prove Tricky
By Timothy Lee (Techdirt)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 8:24:00 AM
Mike Arrington offers some unsolicited
advice to Amazon about how to expand the
market for the Kindle. In a nutshell, he
thinks Amazon should aggressively license
the Kindle hardware specs to third parties,
and allow authorized vendors to use the
Kindle brand. Amazon would require
licensees to use the Kindle store, and
would share the associated revenues.
There's a lot to be said for a plan like this.
The key to long-run dominance of many
OPENING page 9
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
On Second Thought,
Perhaps Stephenie Meyer
Doesn't Get Online Fans
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 1:19:01 PM
It really was just a month ago that we
were writing about how super successful
fiction author Stephenie Meyer was
showing exactly how to embrace online
fans, giving them free reign to build on her
works and do more with them to build up
her own popularity. As I was writing that
post, I have to admit, in the back of my
head, I wondered if I would later be
writing a post about an anti-fan decision --
but even I'm surprised at how quickly it
happened.
Apparently, a draft of the fifth book in
her Twilight Series was leaked online, and
Meyer is so upset b the ordeal that she's
saying the book is on hold and may never
be finished. Instead, she's telling people to
consider the fourth book to be the end of
the series.
As a writer, you can certainly understand
the sentiment. She wants the final release
to be as good as it can be, and that means
getting the chance to do full rewrites, edits
and other things to make sure that it's as
good as can be. But, at the same time, she
The Mainstream Media Has No Shortage Of Resources
By Timothy Lee (Techdirt)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 3:10:00 AM
You regularly see people in the
newspaper business, as well as some
professional media critics, complaining
about the terrible consequences of falling
advertising revenues in the mainstream
media. There seems to be a worry that as
the Internet makes the news business more
competitive, traditional media
organizations won't be able to afford to do
"real" reporting any more. It's not a crazy
also has to understand that her fans are
going to clamor for such a leak anyway. It
shows how much they love her work and
how badly they want to keep up on the
latest story that they're willing to either
leak or download the leak. It's just a sign
of how strong their feeling is towards her
work -- and her response is to punish them
for it? That seems wrong.
Her true fans will still buy the completed
work, should it ever come out. They want
the official version and the leaked version.
Why do you think so many music fans rush
to get "leaked" copies of demo tapes of
bands they love? People like to see how
these things evolve and change over time,
as it gives them an even closer connection
to the work itself. I can sympathize that
Meyers is upset by this, and that she might
be concerned about the impact on the final
story, but she might want to rethink her
initial reaction, and realize that this is
hardly something to be upset about. It's a
sign of how much people care about her
work.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
argument, but more often, the opposite
seems to be true. Take the recently-
completed Democratic Party convention.
Ezra Klein points out that there were a ton
of reporters who had to justify their
presence at the convention, and so rather
than focusing on what was happening on
the stage (which they could have just as
easily done by watching it on TV) they
wandered around looking for trumped-up
controversy to cover, giving undue
attention (in Ezra's view) to a few
disgruntled Clinton supporters.
Will The Android Market Be
More Appealing To Developers
Than The App Store?
By Kevin Donovan (Techdirt)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 11:32:00 AM
In the past month, it has become clear
that Apple, through their App Store, is
going to exercise a lot of control over the
programs that iPhone users download. The
list of removed App Store downloads
include Tetris clones, harmless but
expensive novelties, movie listings and
useful wireless applications. Although
many have sung the praises of the new
system, this trend of contingent
generativity - Jonathan Zittrain's term for
intermediaries exerting control over new
creativity- has some worrying
implications. An ecosystem with perfect
enforceability of rules will come to
preempt the creativity which comes from
the edge (and even piracy). If developers
worry that their applications will be shut
down by an overzealous enforcement
organization (there is no evidence Apple is
pulling applications after anything more
than a third-party complaint), then
innovation will stagnate.
Meanwhile, Matt Yglesias points out that
CNN appears to have flown its stars to
Denver, put them up in hotels, and
constructed an elaborate new set for them,
all so they could "cover" the convention in
precisely the same way they would have
covered it if those same stars had stayed at
home in Atlanta or DC. Far from having
inadequate resources, on the most high-
profile news stories, the mainstream media
seems to squander vast sums of money on
things that only marginally improve the
quality of their coverage. There are a
Google seems to understand this. In
announcing their competing service, the
Android Market, the Android team notes
"We chose the term "market" rather than
"store" because we feel that developers
should have an open and unobstructed
environment to make their content
available." Application creators will be as
free to post information as videographers
are to post to YouTube. Although the lack
of review before posting doesn't mean
Google will not remove applications if
complaints are made, their ethic of
freedom suggests they see mobile
applications in the same light as the
Internet: creators will build unanticipated,
useful applications if given the chance to
experiment freely.
Kevin Donovan is an expert at the
Techdirt Insight Community. To get
insight and analysis from Kevin Donovan
and other experts on challenges your
company faces, click here.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
variety of factors that may be undermining
the quality of mainstream media coverage,
but at the moment, a lack of resources
doesn't seem to be among them.
Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt
Insight Community. To get insight and
analysis from Timothy Lee and other
experts on challenges your company faces,
click here.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
Tech* 9
OPENING
continued from page 8
high-tech industries is to be the platform
around which other firms build their
products. Amazon's got a solid product
with a fair amount of buzz at the moment,
but that could easily evaporate if another
company comes along with a more
compelling product. Getting a lot of third-
party vendors to build products around the
Kindle ecosystem could help establish it as
the standard e-book platform.
The difficulty with opening up the
platform is that the Kindle business
model—particularly the wireless
aspect—depends on limiting the Kindle's
functionality. Amazon is able to offer free
cellular access for the life of the product in
part because it controls the applications
that will run on it, and can therefore
guarantee to cell carriers that users won't
start running bandwidth-hogging
applications on it. And Amazon is willing
to pick up customers' bandwidth bills in
part because it charges premium prices for
content, some of which is available for free
off the open Internet. So if Amazon
licensed the Kindle name to third parties, it
would have two choices. It could tell the
vendors they're on their own in terms of
negotiating their own wireless plans, which
would be a headache for the vendors. Or, if
Amazon wants to bring third parties in
under its own wireless umbrella, it will
presumably need to impose some
draconian restrictions on the functionality
of the Kindle clones. And how many
vendors are going to want to sell Kindle
clones that have all the same limitations as
the original?
Timothy Lee is an expert at the Techdirt
Insight Community. To get insight and
analysis from Timothy Lee and other
experts on challenges your company faces,
click here.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
10 Tech* Gadgets* Web Apps*
More Trade Show Booths
Raided By Customs Over
Patents
By Michael Masnick (Techdirt)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:22:00 AM
Earlier this year, we wrote about how a
patent holding firm, by the name Sisvel,
had German customs officials raid the
trade show booths of certain CeBit
exhibitors, having all their goods
confiscated. At the time, someone in the
comments noted that this is a recurring
theme in Germany, as certain patent
hoarders "target trade show exhibitors and
demand what amounts to protection money
to avoid being raided by the police in the
middle of the show." The companies just
complain to customs, and get officials to
raid the trade show booths in the middle of
the show, even if the patents are bogus or
don't even apply to the goods on display. It
seems like a huge protection racket.
And, of course, it's happened again.
Google Chrome shines
By Robert Vamosi (Webware.com)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 3:33:00 PM
Google has released the beta version of a
new browser, Chrome. In its comic-book
pre-announcement, Google stated correctly
that watching videos, chatting, and even
playing Web-based games didn't exist
when browsers were first invented. For the
user, Google wants the browser to
disappear and to focus on the applications
and pages users are viewing, rather than on
the border with its tools, and such. Google
has rethought the Internet browser--some
of its basic underpinnings are quite novel--
but users will recognize some features as
they exist in other, open-source browsers
on the market today.
At the moment, only the Windows
version of Chrome is available for
download. Plans call for Mac OS X and
Linux versions in the near future. That
said, Google has released Chrome in 43
languages and in 122 countries.
Chrome is based on the open-source
project Webkit, the same rendering engine
Slashdot points us to the news that the
booths of 69 companies at a tech trade
show were raided by customs officials last
week.
What's still not clear is how this possibly
could make sense? While German patent
law apparently allows this, it's hard to
fathom why. Simply displaying a product,
even if it infringes on someone's patent,
hardly seems like a reason to send in
customs officials to confiscate the device. I
can maybe understand suing -- and even
possibly suing for an injunction against
selling the product -- but getting customs
to completely confiscate the products and
shut down the trade show booth simply
doesn't make any sense, and clearly opens
up the system to widespread abuse.
Permalink| Comments| Email This Story
used by Apple Safari. If a page renders in
Safari, it will render in Chrome. Webkit is
also the basis for Android, Google's mobile
platform, so it seems that Google is
planning to use Chrome in mobile
environments.
For more details, see the Chrome First
Take on CNET.
The interface in Chrome is very different
from other browsers and takes a little
getting used to. Instead of the traditional
Netscape/IE-style toolbar across the top,
Chrome uses tabs. Moreover, the tabs are
detachable, so the terms "tabs" and
"windows" become interchangeable within
Chrome. Detached tabs can be dragged and
dropped into the browser, and tabs can be
rearranged at any time.(Credit: Robert
Vamosi / CNET)
Sights and sounds of IFA
2008: look how far Wii've
come
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 9:58:00 AM
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
We won't lie: this started as an excuse to
do a visual gag pertaining to the abundance
of Nintendo Wiis in action at IFA
2008(that most excellent headline pun is
just a bonus). But we got carried away and
ended up with some deeper impressions we
took away from the show, which took
place last week and this week in Berlin,
Germany.
The Wii was naturally not the only thing
we saw at IFA. Panasonic was back with
its 150-inch plasma, a large rock garden of
displays backed by a row of 103-inchers
and its fully-featured Blu-ray players.
Sony's gigantic room-within-a-room forest
was mesmerizing, and the surrounding
technology like that paper-thin
LCD(though Philips got the last laugh) and
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
intriguing Sountina were no doubt of
interest. Samsung brought its A-game once
again, with a breathtaking wall of LCDs,
and enough miscellaneous gadgets to
significantly, literally raise the temperature
in the back of the booth. Toshiba's more
modest affair hid many technology demos
and futuristic technology like a Cell-
powered television and resolution
upscaling. LG was a tad subdued, but by
"subdued" we mean "not as insane as
Samsung." A slew of a Europe-only
companies weren't slumbering either, with
wild displays of their own, primarily of
televisions.
Gallery: Sights and sounds of IFA 2008:
look how far Wii've come
Continue reading Sights and sounds of
IFA 2008: look how far Wii've come
Permalink| Email this| Comments
Commodore impresses
with prototypes at
IFA, really
By Donald Melanson (Engadget)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 10:31:00 AM
Filed under: Handhelds, Laptops
While the idea of Commodore showing
off some early prototype devices isn't
exactly the sort of thing that'd normally get
many folks' hopes up, the never-say-die
company looks to have managed to
impress the doubters at IFA, where it had a
number of intriguing-looking concepts on
hand in addition to that soon-to-be-
released netbook we saw yesterday. That
includes two Pocket PC devices -- one
with a sliding QWERTY keypad and one
that opts for a folding design (pictured
above) -- as well as a much slicker-looking
netbook than the one that is actually going
to be released, naturally (check it out after
the break). Of course, specs for any of
those are virtually non-existent, although
there's apparently some talk that the Pocket
PCs could sell for between €100 and €150
(or roughly $220 to $290) whenever
they're actually released. Be sure to hit up
the gallery below for plenty more shots
courtesy of Engadget Spanish.
Gallery: Commodore impresses with
prototypes at IFA, really
•
•
•
•
•
Continue reading Commodore impresses
with prototypes at IFA, really Read|
Permalink| Email this| Comments
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
Dell confirms Inspiron 910 netbook
arriving this week
By Nilay Patel (Engadget)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 11:11:00 AM
Filed under: Laptops
Dell's Inspiron 910/ Mini Inspiron hasn't
exactly been a secret since we first heard
about it back in April, but it sounds like
this baby bump is about to go from open
secret to bouncing bundle of joy -- Dell
just confirmed to InformationWeek that
the netbook is scheduled to arrive later this
week. That's all we know right now -- Dell
Cellphone charger blamed for blaze in Delaware
By Darren Murph (Engadget)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 3:36:00 PM
Filed under: Cellphones
Details on this one are remarkably
skimpy, but here are the facts as we know
them. A fire caused around $30,000 worth
reps called those earlier specs we'd heard
"pretty much rumor and speculation" -- but
we'll go out on a limb and say we wouldn't
expect anything less than an 8.9-inch
screen and 1.6GHz Atom in there. Sorry if
we killed the surprise, guys -- but
remember, you can still wow us with the
price tag.
[Thanks, AC] Read| Permalink| Email
this| Comments
of damage to a mobile home in Delaware
this past week, but thankfully, the
Millsboro and Indian River firefighters
found no one home at the time of the
incident. The culprit? A "malfunctioning
cellphone charger that ignited the wall
covering in a bedroom." That's it, folks --
Piicron: why choose, when you can
have it all? Invest now!
By Paul Miller (Engadget)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 12:32:00 PM
Filed under: Gaming
It's hard to tell if those awesome
consoles up above are artists renditions or
very real pieces of gaming technology that
will shake the industry at its core. So hard
to tell. We won't humor Piicron enough to
actually describe their ideas (okay, just
one: Ubercron, a $500 console that can
play "any game ever released to any
no manufacturer, no brand name, nothing.
In other words, unplug your chargers when
console" with its 3.2GHz quad-core
processor) but we do recommend clicking
on over to the website, where you can
easily squander an afternoon reading
through all this insanity. To be honest,
we're almost a little disappointed none of
this is grounded in reality, or even vaguely
aware of reality: at least Phantom was
trying. Read| Permalink| Email this|
Comments
you leave the house... or store your home
in a fireproof safe, either one.
[Thanks, Carl] Read| Permalink| Email
this| Comments
Gadgets* Tech Tips* 11
Metallic Silver Nintendo
DS to arrive Stateside on
September 7
By Nilay Patel (Engadget)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 9:01:00 AM
We've seen the Nintendo DS Lite dressed
up in an entire rainbow of questionable
colors, but basic silver has only been out in
Europe and Japan until now -- we'll be
getting this classy number stateside on
September 7th. Anyone going to top off
their collections?
[Via Joystiq] Read| Permalink| Email this|
Comments
Tune Instructor Brings
Advanced ID3 Editing to
Your Mac [Featured Mac
Download]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 6:30:00 AM
Mac OS X only: Free application Tune
Instructor adds advanced ID3 tag editing
for your iTunes library through a smart
third-party utility. The iTunes helper
boasts features like search and replace for
your tags, or it can set ID3 tags from a
filename or set filenames from ID3 tags. It
can automatically search and embed album
art or lyrics—though I ran into issues with
German-language lyrics sometimes
showing up rather than English. The
application has a lot of potential, and
works well overall. I did run into a few
peculiarities when testing it, but overall it
offers advanced, worthwhile ID3 editing
beyond what iTunes offers by default.
Tune Instructor is freeware, Mac OS X
only. Tune Instructor[via Cool OSX Apps]
12 Web Apps* TV* Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper

Why Google Chrome? Fast browsing = $$$

By Stephen Shankland
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 3:30:00 PM
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.--On the Web,
a site that responds a few milliseconds
faster can make a big difference in people's
engagement. It's for this reason that
Google believes its new Web browser,
Chrome, is a project worth investing in
rather than a footnote in the history of the
Internet.
Chrome, Google said during its Tuesday
launch event, is much faster at showing
Web pages than the most widely used
browser, Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
Google's hope is that performance will
open up the bottleneck that chokes the
speed and abilities of today's Web-based
applications.
In short, Chrome is more of a long-term
competitive threat to Microsoft Office and
Windows than it is to Internet Explorer.
That may sound a little grand, but the
evidence is on display in Google's own
lobby, where the search company's
computer kiosks present a browser only--
no start menu, no desktop shortcuts, no
operating system.
Why speed means money
Google benefits materially from fast
performance. First, when it comes to
search, Google discovered when its search
page loads fractionally faster, users search
more often, which of course leads to more
opportunities for Google to place its highly
lucrative text ads. Second, a faster Web
application foundation means that Google's
online applications for e-mail, word
processing, spreadsheets, and calendars
can become faster and fuller-featured.
Note that Google likes to talk about its
three main efforts: search, ads, and apps,
and with Chrome or a faster browser in
general, all three benefit.
"Our business does well if people are
using the Web a lot and are able to use it
easily and quickly," Google co-founder
Sergey Brin said.
Google faces many challenges with
Chrome--convincing anyone other than a
few early adopters and Web developers to
adopt it, matching the pace of development
of rival browsers, and assuring the Google-
phobic that it's OK for the company to be
in charge of yet another essential element
of computing. But Google's influence is
strong enough that just talking about
performance and rattling its chrome-plated
saber is probably enough to advance its
Web-application agenda.
Brin was loathe to call Chrome an
operating system, but it was clear at
Tuesday's event that he defines Chrome's
success in terms of the applications that
can be run.
"The word 'operating system' comes with
a lot of baggage. We have a lightweight,
fast engine for executing Web
applications," Brin said. But, he added, "I
think we'll see more and more Web
applications of greater sophistication. All
the things (you see) today are pretty
challenging to do."
And, Brin added, Google benefits even if
Chrome has no other influence than to get
the competitive juices flowing faster
among developers of competing browsers:
"Even if IE 9 was much, much faster as a
result of Chrome, we would consider that a
success," Brin said.
Chrome's V8 engine
Google's has a two-part claim to faster
performance. One is its use of the open-
source WebKit project, also used in
Apple's Safari, to render Web pages on the
browser screen engine for showing Web
pages. More important for Web
applications, though, is the brand-new V8
project for running programs written in
JavaScript.
JavaScript has grown from modest
beginnings into the language of many
fancy, interactive Web sites and the
foundational technology for rich Web
applications using a technology called
Ajax. However, for many applications, it's
not powerful enough, which is why
Picnik's online photo editing tools use
Adobe's Flash and why Microsoft is
pushing its own technology called
Silverlight.
Google, Yahoo, and others, though, are
JavaScript fans, and speeding it up will
boost countless Web sites, not just
bleeding-edge applications such as Google
Docs. Faster JavaScript performance is
why Mozilla is so eager to talk about a
project called TraceMonkey coming with
Firefox 3.1, why WebKit programmers are
working hard on a project called
SquirrelFish, and one reason why
Microsoft is eager to move people to its
forthcoming Internet Explorer 8.
With a JavaScript speed test Google
showed during the event, Chrome trounced
IE 7, Microsoft's current browser, but I
was leery of generalizing too much from a
press conference demonstration. Lars Bak,
though, the Google engineer who was the
technical leader for V8, is confident in the
technology.
Bak wouldn't share any specific
numbers, but he said Chrome is "many
times faster" than IE 7. How about Firefox,
now and later with TraceMonkey? "Many
times faster. I guarantee you."
Of course, Bak was basing his claims on
Google's own suite of JavaScript
benchmarks, available on the V8 Web site.
But at first blush, the tests, with 11,000
lines of code, aren't a wildly skewed set.
New horizons for Web developers?
Faster JavaScript means that applications
can be faster, but also that programmers
can push the Web application limits
farther. "You can include more code in the
browser. It really opens up the creativity of
the Web app developer," Bak said.
And Sundar Pichai, a Google vice
president of product management, was
salivating over the possibilities.
"Most developers don't use JavaScript a
lot because it doesn't run very fast," he
said. V8 "will enable a whole new class of
applications for tomorrow."
The biggest buzzkill for Google's vision,
though, is that the Internet is just as much a
boat anchor as an engine of innovation.
Firefox has achieved notable market
penetration and has inflamed the passions
of many Net aficionados, but it still lags
the market share of Internet Explorer 6,
which was introduced in 2001, when the
first Internet bubble was still in the process
of bursting.
And Google didn't have much to
convince me that average users would be
moving to Chrome anytime soon. Faster
browsing and various features for user
interface, security, privacy, and search are
handy, but not enough to get most people
to take the trouble of downloading and
installing a new browser.
But even if Chrome never gets far
beyond the stage of publicity, don't
discount the power of Google promotion.
The company has a lot of power in setting
the technology agenda. And as long as the
company is willing to count a faster IE as a
successful outcome, its Chrome project
looks like it'll be a win.
Fans unite to
save Swingtown
By Allison Waldman (TV Squad)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 9:20:00 AM
Filed under: Industry, Pickups and
Renewals, Reality-Free This Friday CBS
will air the last episode of Swingtown, but
the question of the future for the show still
remains unanswered. Is this the series
finale or just the season finale? Fans are
concerned and I've been contacted by one
who has started a petition online to present
to CBS, beseeching the network to give
Swingtown a second season. If you want to
sign up, click here.
I've been reviewing Swingtown since it
premiered earlier this summer and I've
liked the show. In fact, it's grown on me
and if I were in a position to make the call,
I'd give Swingtown an order for 13 more
episodes. Yes, the series has not been a
ratings hit, I'll give you that. However, it
has created a lot of buzz and media
coverage.
Continue reading Fans unite to save
Swingtown
Permalink| Email this| | Comments

What's On Tonight: 90210, American Teenager, Food Detectives

By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 9:04:00 AM
Filed under: Programming, What To
Watch Tonight, Reality-Free
• The news channels, some PBS channels,
and CSPAN have coverage of the
Republican National Convention all night.
The networks join in at 10.
• At 7, USA has coverage of The U.S.
Open.
• At 8, NBC has a new, two-hour
America's Got Talent.
• The CW has the series premiere of
90210 at 8.
• ABC Family has The Secret Life of an
American Teenager at 8, then a new
Greek.
• ESPN has two new episodes of The
World Series of Poker starting at 8.
• At 8:40, BBC America has a new Gavin
& Stacey.
• At 9, ABC has a new Wanna Bet? • Also at 10: Bravo has the season
• CBS has a new Big Brother at 9. premiere of The Janice Dickinson
• There's a new Food Detectives on Food Modeling Agency.
Network at 9. Check your local TV listings for more.
• At 10, FX has the season premiere of Permalink| Email this| | Comments
The Shield.
• A&E has a new episode of The Cleaner
at 10.
• E! has a new Pam on the Loose at 10.
• Sci-Fi has a new ECW at 10.
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
Google Chrome: My first impressions
By Molly Wood (Webware.com)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:30:00 PM
This should, in no way, be considered an
official review--see CNET and CNET
News for the proper shebang. I've just been
using Chrome for a few hours and thought
I'd dash off some quick thoughts.
First: It is fast as you-know-what. It feels
super-responsive, so much so that I first
thought it must be a trick. The tabs almost
seem to click themselves; the autocomplete
is so speedy that I thought it was reading
my mind. After download and launch, it
pulled in not only my bookmarks but,
apparently, also my Awesome Bar history.
Once I loaded it up and typed "T,"
Twitter.com was almost already loaded in
the tab. It was slightly terrifying, actually.
One note: Chrome did not import my
Firefox Live Bookmarks--the RSS feeds
that appear in a drop-down from the menu
bar, and it sadly doesn't have this as a
feature at all.
The "tabs-on-top" interface is actually a
tiny bit off-putting at first. I'm so used to
tabs being below the URL bar that I
initially felt confused about which ones I
had opened. Also, there are no traditional
menus for...well, anything. There's almost
no text whatsoever at the top of the
browser window. No File, Edit, View,
Tools, etc. You've got a wrench for the
very minimal selection of customization
settings and a button to the left of that
where you access the menu items you
normally find in "File," "Edit," and
"Tools," along with a Developer option
Bookmark your favorite spots like a mixtape with Placefav
By Josh Lowensohn
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 10:08:00 AM
Placefav is a social-bookmarking service
for places. It was pitched to me as a cross
between the currently defunct Muxtape
and Delicious. A better thing to compare it
to is the list-making feature on reviews
service Yelp.
The ultimate aim is to pass your list
where you'll find Chrome's Windows-style
Task manager (and a JavaScript debugger
and console, which I think I might really
need...see below).
There's not even a separate search bar;
you conduct everything from the URL bar.
I did discover that the Ctrl-K keyboard
shortcut that normally puts your cursor in
the search bar in Firefox adds a little
question mark to the Chrome URL bar, so
the browser knows for sure that you're
conducting a search. But it's not really
necessary. If you type anything but a URL
along to someone else as a self-contained
city guide. Things like this are useful when
somebody asks you for a list of places or
things to do if they're visiting your
hometown, or a vacation spot you might
have a little extra local knowledge of. The
site also offers the option to favorite other
users and explore the lists of people
nearby.
Like Muxtape, Placefav limits you to just
a dozen spots for your favorite places. You
into the URL bar, Chrome does a search. I
like it, but it takes a little getting used to.
Now for the negatives. In my short use, I
found that Chrome's got some problems
playing nice with JavaScript--or at least,
I'm assuming that's the problem. A Safari
user told me he's encountered some of the
same issues I had, so I suspect it's related
to the open-source WebKit on which both
browsers are based (and some quick
searching seems to bear that out).
Among the issues I ran into today: I
attempted to sign up for Hallmark.com to
can customize the colors, and if you've put
in the addresses there are quick links for
pop-out Google Maps. If you don't know
the address it will do its best to guess the
address of a place based on the name and
city it's in. The entire list is self contained
send an e-card. The site launches its sign-
in window as a JavaScript pop-up. Once
I'd registered and tried to sign in via the
pop-up, the window got caught in an
infinite refresh loop. I couldn't keep my
cursor in the text field or type. Sorry,
Hallmark! On Facebook, as I attempted to
page through an album, I got about eight
photos in, and then, as I clicked Next, the
page would display the next photo, then
immediately jump back to the previous
one, and it wouldn't progress any more
than that. Finally, as I attempted to sign in
to Hipster Cards(I need to send an e-card
today!), that site's online form failed me at
the Captcha field: every time I tried to
click in it, the cursor leaped out and
plopped itself back in the "First name"
field. Firefox to the rescue.
I thought maybe Chrome was trying to
tell me something about the e-card sites,
but then, as I searched for an answer to the
WebKit/JavaScript problem, I got this
error on a result page:
So, that's pretty terrifying, and I guess as
security features go, it's hard to miss.
Hopefully it's not a false positive. In any
case, like I said, I haven't done exhaustive
testing on Chrome, and I haven't yet tested
it with Google Docs or other Web-based
Google apps. But at first blush, I like the
speed, but it's certainly not ready to be my
daily browser. At least not if my mom ever
hopes to get an anniversary e-card.
with its own vanity URL and can be
accessed fairly quickly on mobile phones.
Creator Kyle Bragger tells me he's hoping
to build an iPhone application that makes
use of the device's GPS to make entry and
browsing a little faster.
Coming in later versions will be the
option to make even larger lists and simply
e-mail your places and have the service
add it to a new or existing list. Bragger
also hopes to include SMS support once
Web Apps* TV* 13
The Shield:
Coefficient of Drag
(season premiere)
By Jonathan Toomey (TV Squad)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:02:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, The Shield, Episode
Reviews, Reality-Free
( S07E01)"The Armenians know about
the money train!" - Shane
The beginning of the end. One down and
twelve to go in The Shield's final run. As
depressing as that is, a.) at least it's not
over yet and, b.) it started out with one hell
of a set-up, huh? Vic and the rest of the
Strike Team (what's left of it anyway) have
gotten themselves into some serious
messes in the past, but something tells me
that stirring up a manufactured feud
between the Armenians and the Mexicans
isn't going to lead to a happy ending.
Continue reading The Shield: Coefficient
of Drag (season premiere)
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
he's got the e-mail squared away. You can
check out the list I made by clicking the
screenshot below.
Compiled here is a list of food joints I
put together in a few minutes. Each one
has a map and any related photos pulled
from the Web. Like Muxtape you can only
put together a dozen places and each list
you make has its own vanity URL.(Credit:
CNET Networks)
14 Web Apps* TV* Tech Tips*
Be sure to read Chrome's fine print
By Ina Fried (Webware.com)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 11:59:00 AM
Moments ago, Google went live with its
Chrome Web Browser. I immediately
clicked download, but not before I saved a
copy of its terms of service. I like to know
what I am agreeing to. CNET News Poll
Browser wars, redux
What browser is in your future?
Google Chrome
Internet Explorer
Firefox
Safari
Opera
Other
View results
Here are a few things that stood out to
me.
1. Google reserves the right to
automatically update and install Chrome.
This is becoming standard fare with
much software these days, but worth
noting.
"The software which you use may
automatically download and install updates
from time to time from Google. These
Speed test: Google Chrome beats Firefox, IE, Safari
By Stephen Shankland
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:18:00 PM
Google introduced Chrome in part
because it wants faster browsing and the
richer Web applications that speed will
unlock. So how does Chrome actually
stack up?
Google's Chrome overpowers the other
browsers on the five subtests by which
Google measures its browser's JavaScript
performance.(Credit: Stephen
Shankland/CNET News)
Lars Bak, the Google engineer who was
the technical leader for Chrome's V8
JavaScript engine, said at the launch event
Tuesday he's confident Chrome is "many
times faster" than the rivals at running
JavaScript, the programming language that
powers Google Docs, Gmail, and many
other Web applications.
But when pressed for specifics, he told
me to try them out. So I did.
updates are designed to improve, enhance
and further develop the services and may
take the form of bug fixes, enhanced
functions, new software modules and
completely new versions. You agree to
receive such updates (and permit Google to
deliver these to you) as part of your use of
the services."
2. Although you retain any copyrights to
content you own and use in the browser,
Google says it has a right to display some
of your content, in conjunction with
promoting its services. Here's their exact
wording.
"By submitting, posting or displaying the
content you give Google a perpetual,
irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and
non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt,
modify, translate, publish, publicly
perform, publicly display and distribute
any content which you submit, post or
display on or through, the services. This
license is for the sole purpose of enabling
Google to display, distribute and promote
the services and may be revoked for
certain services as defined in the additional
terms of those services."
Google offers a site with five JavaScript
benchmarks. On each one of these tests,
Chrome clearly trounced the competition. I
hope benchmarking experts and developers
will weigh in with comments about how
well these tests represent true JavaScript
performance on the Web--either for
ordinary sites or for rich Web apps.
3. Don't be surprised to see more ads.
Traditionally, it is Web pages and not the
browser itself that serves ads. Google isn't
saying it will change this paradigm, but it's
terms of service don't rule that out either.
"Some of the services are supported by
advertising revenue and may display
advertisements and promotions. These
advertisements may be targeted to the
content of information stored on the
services, queries made through the services
or other information.
The manner, mode and extent of
advertising by Google on the services are
subject to change without specific notice to
you."
Also worth paying attention to are the
settings when you install it. By default,
Chrome will add all manner of shortcuts,
so if you don't want it to do that, be sure to
click "customize these settings." Of note, it
does not make itself the default browser
without a user agreeing to do so.
Click here for full coverage of the
Google Chrome launch.
Here's the site description of the speed
tests:
Richards: OS kernel simulation
benchmark, originally written in BCPL by
Martin Richards (539 lines).
DeltaBlue: One-way constraint solver,
originally written in Smalltalk by John
Maloney and Mario Wolczko (880 lines).
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
Talk Talk: Nicolas Cage, Judas Priest,
Nathan Fillion
By Bob Sassone (TV Squad)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 10:00:00 AM
Filed under: Late Night, TV Royalty,
Programming, Celebrities, Talk Show,
Reality-Free Here's who's on the late night
shows tonight.
• Charlie Rose: coverage of the RNC
• The Daily Show: Governor Charlie
Crist
• The Colbert Report: coverage of the
RNC
• The Late Show with David Letterman:
Nicolas Cage, Anna Torv, and Terrence
Howard
• Jay Leno: Russell Brand, Eva Longoria,
and Ingrid Michaelson
• Jimmy Kimmel Live: Jo Frost, Taye
Diggs, and Judas Priest
• Tavis Smiley: TBA
• Late Night with Conan O'Brien: Jarod
Miller, Jason Lezak, and Ra Ra Riot
Crypto: Encryption and decryption
benchmark based on code by Tom Wu
(1,689 lines).
RayTrace: Ray tracer benchmark based
on code by Adam Burmister (3,418 lines).
EarleyBoyer: Classic Scheme
benchmarks, translated to JavaScript by
Florian Loitsch's Scheme2Js compiler
(4,682 lines).
Google's overall score is head and
shoulders above the competition for
executing JavaScript.(Credit: Stephen
Shankland/CNET News)
A few notes: First, your mileage may
vary; I ran these tests on my dual-core
Windows XP machine.
Second, my apologies here to Opera,
whose browser I don't have installed.
Third, I tried to run the SunSpider
benchmark tests as well, but perhaps
because a lot of other curious people had
the same idea on the day Chrome
launched, I couldn't get to the site.
• The Late, Late Show with Craig
Ferguson: Katey Sagal and Nathan Fillion
• Last Call with Carson Daly: Rob
Corddry, Steve Hely, and Vali
Chandrasekaren (repeat)
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
Which Chrome Feature Do
You Most Want in Your
Browser? [Reader Poll]
By Gina Trapani (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 7:00:00 AM
Now that you've seen what Google's new
beta web browser Chrome can do, do any
of its features inspire lust? Or is Chrome
yet another minimalist browser that will
never live up to the high bar established
players have already set? If you're a Mac
or Linux user without access to
Chrome—or heck, just a power user
interested in Chrome's take on web surfing,
tell us what features had you saying, "I
wish I had that in my browser."
Gawker Media polls require Javascript; if
you're viewing this in an RSS reader, click
through to view in your Javascript-enabled
web browser.
Now that you've told us the features that
you love, what's holding you back from
moving to Chrome full-time? At this early
point in the game my first answer is
extensions. What about you? Tell us what
you love the most—and miss the most—in
Google Chrome. Google Chrome
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
Chrome tops IE, Firefox in 90210: We're Not in Kansas
Acid3 test Anymore; The Jet Set (series
By Harrison Hoffman
(Webware.com)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:47:00 PM
Google's Chrome gets a 78 out of 100 on
the Acid3 test Google's Chrome browser is
outperforming the latest "stable" builds of
both Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 7 in
the popular Acid3 test. The Acid test, for
those who do not know, tests how well a
browser complies with a given set of Web
standards. While all three browsers pass
the Acid2 test, Chrome currently clocks in
at 78 out of 100 on Acid3, while Firefox
and IE7 stand at 71 and 14 respectively.
The only release quality build to beat
Chrome is Opera, which scores an 83.
Even though Google has the stable builds
edged out, we have to remember that
Chrome is still in development, where it is
topped by a number of other "unstable,"
development builds, including Firefox 3.1
Beta 1 (85), Opera (91), and Safari 4 (100).
It is interesting that the Safari 4 Developer
Preview performs so much better than
Chrome, given that they are both built on
Apple's WebKit framework.
Whenever a new browser or an update to
a browser is released, one of the first
things that techies tend to look at is how it
fares on the Acid test. The latest iteration
Frak and other fictional curse words
By Brad Trechak (TV Squad)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 12:02:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, TV Squad Lists,
Reality-Free There is a marvelous article
on CNN about the origins of the word
"Frak", the replacement curse word used
heavily in the series Battlestar Galactica. It
seems that the word was invented in the
original 70's version of the show by creator
Glen A. Larson but it was seldom used.
It got me thinking about other
replacement profanities used by scripted
television to replace the normal curse
words that the FCC bans from televised
broadcasts. We have previously posted
about made-up words on
television(including the profanities "Smeg"
from Red Dwarf and "Frell" from
of the test, Acid3, is the hardest yet and no
"stable" browser builds have achieved a
100 out of 100 on the test, although the
Safari 4 Developer Preview has.
Passing the Acid3 test is an important
goal for browser developers and it's great
to see that Chrome is performing so well
on its first attempt.
Update:
A reader, Benjamin, writes in saying that
under Vista SP1, Chrome shows scores
ranging from 74 to 79 on the Acid3 test.
Running it again right now, the test
showed a score of a 79. Some of the initial
variability could have been due to the
servers for the Acid3 test being hammered
as a result of Chrome's release.
Farscape), but I have a few to add to that
list:
Continue reading Frak and other fictional
curse words
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
premiere)
By Kona Gallagher (TV Squad)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:58:00 PM
Filed under: Other Drama Shows,
Episode Reviews, Reality-Free Wow. So,
within the first five minutes it becomes
abundantly clear that this is not your
momma's 90210. First of all, there are
actual non-whites at West Beverly High!
Er, well, at least one. But he's a main
character! Secondly, kids at West Beverly
don't just hang out at the Peach Pit or
whatever before class, they perform sexual
acts in their big, shiny SUVs!
Other things are the same, however, such
as the fact that being a new kid still sucks:
even if you're an impossibly skinny girl
with perfect teeth and hair like a shiny,
pretty labradoodle, like Annie Wilson.
People still call you Farm Girl, and Kelly
Taylor's sister posts mean blogs about you.
Meanwhile, if you're her brother, even
being a lacrosse star can end badly, when
jealous kids get you kicked off the team.
90210's premiere is a little uneven, but
America's Got Talent: Episode 311
By Isabelle Carreau (TV Squad)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 4:23:00 PM
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews,
America's Got Talent
(S03E11) "It's too good this year!" - The
Hoff
In case you didn't hear, America's Got
Talent was renewed for a fourth season.
This was, of course, because of amazing
ratings that made the show number 1 last
Big Brother 10: Live feeds report - September 2
By Jackie Schnoop (TV Squad)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 11:01:00 AM
Filed under: OpEd, Big Brother (US)
Tonight's Big Brother 10 episode will
show the Power of Veto competition and
the meeting of the mindless afterwards. Of
course, the Power of Veto isn't to be
confused with the Power of Vito on The
Sopranos. But that could be an interesting
Web Apps* TV* Food*
also oddly entertaining. One thing that
everyone can agree on though, is that
Jessica Walters is still awesome.
Continue reading 90210: We're Not in
Kansas Anymore; The Jet Set (series
premiere)
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
week. However, if the judges keep letting
poor acts go through to the Top 40, they'll
lose viewers every week. The Hoff must be
twist on things. I can see it now ... show
fans decided they hate a character and the
mob shows up for a rub-out! However,
15
Mom's Warm Potato
Salad
By Elise
Submitted at 8/23/2008 12:53:16 AM
I don't know about you, but summer
around here has us making potato salads
more often than in other seasons. This is
the latest one my mother put together; my
father has made her make it several times
since, and my brothers have devoured it
with raves for mom. No mayo, just a
simple rice vinegar olive oil dressing.
Continue reading "Mom's Warm Potato
Salad" »
watching different performances than we
are because the show is not that good this
year. Actually, out of the 10 acts shown in
episode 311, half got Xed by at least Piers.
Okay, he may be trigger happy, but those
acts deserved it.
Continue reading America's Got Talent:
Episode 311
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
with Vito being dead and all, that's just not
going to work.
For the latest news from the 24/7 live
feeds, read on past the jump. Show spoilers
ahead!
Continue reading Big Brother 10: Live
feeds report - September 2
Permalink| Email this| | Comments
16 Movies*
Bruce Springsteen Sings
for 'The Wrestler' ... and
Judd Apatow?
By Jessica Barnes (Cinematical)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 1:02:00 PM
By far, one of the most anticipated
movies on the festival circuit this year is
Darren Aronofsky's The Wrestler. But
many have been wondering why the film
had secured such an 'undesirable' closing
spot at the Venice Film Festival -- could
there be trouble ahead with the finished
product? But it looks like all that fretting
was for nothing, because Aronofsky
updated his personal blog with the news
that the only reason for the delay in the
selection process was that he was awaiting
a completed song from Bruce Springsteen
for the end of the film.
The Wrestler is the story of Randy "The
Ram" Robinson (played by an almost
unrecognizable Mickey Rourke); a former
star of pro-wrestling in the '80s who has
been reduced to appearing at high schools
and community centers. With a heart
condition and early retirement looming,
Robinson takes one last shot at the 'big-
time' in a match against a former rival. I
can't say pro-wrestling is my usual area of
interest, but I am pretty excited to see what
a visual maestro like Aronofsky can do
with that world -- and for a great primer on
the difficult life of a pro-wrestler, I highly
recommend the documentary Beyond the
Mat
According to Aronofsky, "Springsteen
wrote a beautiful original song for the
closing the film. called THE WRESTLER
it is a wonderful acoustic piece. makes me
choke up every time i hear it. he really
captured the spirit of the film and mickey's
character in the piece." The pairing of
Springsteen with the film seems to be a
perfect fit. Because, if anyone has the
knack for singing about the travails of a
downtrodden man, it's Springsteen (and
that Oscar pedigree probably doesn't hurt
either).
The Wrestler will premiere in Venice on
September 5th (we'll have a review from
Toronto), and is expected to arrive in
theaters later this year.
[Thanks:/film]
Filed under: Drama, Sports, Movie
Marketing, Toronto International Film
Festival, Venice Film Festival
Continue reading Bruce Springsteen
Sings for 'The Wrestler' ... and Judd
Apatow?
Read| Permalink| Email this| Comments
Fanboy Bites: 'Persia' Pics,
'Poltergeist' Remake and
'Guitar Hero: The Movie'??
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 2:02:00 PM
While you suffer through those back to
school blues ...
Guitar Hero: The Movie-- I have to start
with this one. Have to! Because not only
are we talking about a possible big-screen
movie based on the popular video game,
but we're also about to tell you who wants
to direct the thing. Can you guess? Here's a
hint: It's not Uwe Boll. And if it's not Boll,
it has to be ... Ratner! YES! (I really do
think I love this maniac in a totally
platonic, yet sadistic way -- sorta how you
love a great movie villain.) Anyway, Brett
Ratner tells MTV that he'd love to make a
Guitar Hero movie, possibly about "a kid
from a small town who dreams of being a
rock star and he wins the 'Guitar Hero'
competition. One of these dreams-[come-
true] kind of concepts." Ratner adds, "I
would love to do a 'Guitar Hero' movie, if
Activision would ever let me. I'm trying to
convince them, but why would you have a
movie screw up such a huge franchise?
Not that I would make a bad movie. So
that would be cool, to do a 'Guitar Hero'
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
movie. " I'm leaving this one to you, folks -
- have at it!
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: In
case you're interested in seeing what a
standard Persian-esque set looks like,
Korben.info has put up a few select shots
(see one above) of the Prince of Persia:
The Sands of Time set. Based on the
popular video game (hurray for themes in
posts!), Prince of Persia stars Jake "I didn't
know he was Persian" Gyllenhaal as a
young prince who teams up with a hottie
princess (Gemma Arterton) to stop an evil
ruler from doing evil things.
A director has been chosen to remake
Poltergeist and Cinematical says we likey
him ... after the jump ...
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy,
Deals, RumorMonger, Fandom,
Newsstand, Steven Spielberg,
Comic/Superhero/Geek, Games and Game
Movies
Continue reading Fanboy Bites: 'Persia'
Pics, 'Poltergeist' Remake and 'Guitar
Hero: The Movie'??
Permalink| Email this| Comments
Watch This:
Welcome Back
to School!
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 10:02:00 AM
"Good teacher ... he really seems to care.
About what, I have no idea."
Earlier this morning I was Twittering
(Tweeteling? Tweeting?) about how much
it has to suck for those kids going back to
school today. Not sure what the days are in
your city or state, but here in New York
today marked the first day of school for
kids across the city. After a long, hot
summer, some kids might look forward to
a little structured learning (nerds!), while
others simply adore showing up to a new
year of school in whatever slick, expensive
outfits their parents bought for them last
month during that dreaded "We're going to
the mall to buy you new clothes and you're
going to shut up and like it" sorta trip.
In honor of this glorious time of the year
(it'll be alright freshman -- just get through
the first couple of weeks, and it's smooth
sailing from there), your friends at
Cinematical want to share a clip from one
of our beloved back to school flicks called,
well, Back to School. Chances are you will
get at least one nutty teacher this semester
(or next), and so in order to feel better
about the whole thing, watch Sam Kinison
at work here. Guaranteed your teacher ain't
half as crazy as this lunatic.
How many days until winter break?
Filed under: Comedy, Fandom, Trailers
and Clips
Permalink| Email this| Comments
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
James Bond Awesomeness: 'Bangkok [Not So]
Ask Daniel Craig and Marc Dangerous'?
Forster a Question!
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 3:02:00 PM
Cinematical is absolutely stoked to
announce a very cool opportunity. In just a
couple of weeks, we'll be heading to
London to sit down with James Bond
himself, Daniel Craig, and Quantum of
Solace director Marc Forster. We'll also be
taking part in some other super awesome
secret activities, but we'll fill you in on all
that as time goes on. First, however, we
need your help. Yes, you! The dude (or
dudette) reading this post, with one hand
scratching that annoying mosquito bite
while the other hand ...
... Anyway, we need your help with some
questions. Basically we're sitting down
with Bond and Forster, but the words that
come out of our mouths will be from you.
Is there anything you've always wanted to
know about Daniel Craig, Marc Forster,
James Bond or Quantum of Solace? Sure
there is, so spit it out now or forever live
with the fact that you had a chance to ask
Craig where he buys his underwear and
you passed it up! [Makes shape of an 'L' on
my forehead, then sighs because it's so
2004 of me]
Submit any and all questions you have
for these boys in the comments below. If
you want to keep it private (those are my
kind of questions!), then feel free to send
an email to leads AT Cinematical DOT
Com, and title it JAMES BOND
QUESTION. We'll choose our favorites,
chuck 'em out to Craig and Forster, then
post their answers (with credit to the
brilliant readers who asked said questions)
when we get back from our trip across the
pond. Quantum of Solace hits theaters on
November 14.
Sound off below (and thanks for helping
us out with this -- your next virtual martini
is on us)!
Gallery: Quantum of Solace
Filed under: Site Announcements,
Fandom, James Bond
Permalink| Email this| Comments
By Peter Martin (Cinematical)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 12:02:00 PM
In advance of its release last week,
Disaster Movie was slammed for the
insensitivy of its release date -- on the third
anniversary of one of the worst natural
disasters in history. (Hurricane Gustav
narrowly avoided adding injury to insult.)
Probably for a variety of reasons,
audiences stayed away in droves, as
Eugene noted. Now Bangkok Dangerous,
the only wide release scheduled for this
week, finds itself overtaken by current
events. What else do the two apparent
stinkers have in common? Lionsgate, their
US distributor.
Lionsgate must pride itself on its highly-
targeted slate being critic-proof, since it
maximizes profits by skipping most
advance screenings for critics and relying
entirely on a blitkreig of advertising to fill
theaters on opening weekend before word
of mouth can spread. In fact, they informed
publications some time ago that no
advance press screenings for Bangkok
Dangerous would be held. As Josh Tyler of
Cinema Blend commented when reporting
on the notice: "Not screened for the press
almost always means the movie is so bad
even the people who made it know the film
is awful."
Cinematical will post a review later this
week, after it opens. But advance word --
and current events -- make the movie
sound like another disaster for Lionsgate.
Filed under: Action, New Releases,
Lionsgate Films, Movie Marketing,
Remakes and Sequels
Continue reading'Bangkok [Not So]
Dangerous'?
Permalink| Email this| Comments
Movies* 17
Stars in Rewind:
McDormand and the Coens,
'Blood Simple' '80s-Style
By Monika Bartyzel (Cinematical)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 12:32:00 PM
The latest wacky work from Ethan and
Joel Coen, Burn After Reading, is headed
to screens next week. As you might have
seen from the trailer, the flick has brought
together the awesome collection of George
Clooney, Brad Pitt, John Malkovich, Tilda
Swinton, and Frances McDormand. But
this is certainly not the first Coen movie
that Frances has graced. In fact, they jump-
started her career in 1984 with Blood
Simple.
Above, you can check out the trailer for
the film, which follows love triangles and
murder. McDormand's Abby is married to
Julian (Dan Hedaya), but having an affair
with Ray (John Getz). To make matters
messier, her lover works for her husband.
Julian finds out and wants murderous
revenge. But deals with sketchy characters
will always be that -- sketchy -- so things
don't go according to plan. If you need to
know more, check out Peter's great retro
review.
It's not really a primer for Burn After
Reading, which is definitely more in the
Coens' goofy sea, but it is a look at how far
McDormand has come over the years.
Thank God Joel found her and married
her! Can you imagine all those films,
especially Fargo, without McDormand?
Filed under: Drama, Thrillers, Trailers
and Clips, Stars in Rewind
Permalink| Email this| Comments
18 Movies* Tech Tips* Food*
'Zack and Miri' Make a Red
Band Trailer!
By Erik Davis (Cinematical)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 11:11:00 AM
Star Whores!
It's the film I've been waiting to see my
entire life! Yay for Star Whores! A brand
new red band trailer for Zack and Miri
Make a Porno has landed over at Rotten
Tomatoes (those damn pervs) -- and good
news is this trailer is friggin' hysterical.
(I'm sorry, but Seth Rogen was born to star
in a Kevin Smith flick.) Really funny stuff.
You can watch it after the jump, but, of
course, I have to warn you that there's
plenty of foul language, but no nudity ...
yet. Need to go watch it a few more times,
but I think I'm loving "Bubbles" and am
really glad Jeff Anderson and Craig
Smoked Salmon Bisque
By Elise
Submitted at 9/3/2008 1:39:29 AM
A little trivia here. What makes a bisque a
bisque and not a chowder? Both bisques
Robinson nabbed roles in this. I really
think they're going to be the unsung heroes
of the flick and steal every scene they're in.
Heck, they practically steal the damn
trailer!
Okay, enough typing ... more watching.
Check out the red band trailer after the
jump and let us know what you think. Zack
and Miri Make a Porno hits theaters on
October 31, but premieres this month at the
Toronto International Film Festival.
Filed under: Comedy, Fandom, Toronto
International Film Festival, Trailers and
Clips
Continue reading'Zack and Miri' Make a
Red Band Trailer!
Permalink| Email this| Comments
and chowders are made with seafood and
vegetables, with a cream base. Chowders
tend to be more stew-like or chunky, and
bisques puréed. Bisques are traditionally
made with shellfish, though these days a
Tim Roth is an Angel
By Monika Bartyzel (Cinematical)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 10:45:00 AM
Good lord, Tim Roth is doing a lot of
morphing lately. He de-aged himself in
Youth Without Youth, became a weird ol'
monster in The Incredible Hulk, and now
he's getting his wings.
Variety reports that Roth is taking the
title role in Skellig-- a UK production that
will hit television screens next spring
before getting a theatrical release. Based
on the novel by David Almond, Skellig
focuses on a boy in northern England who
makes a surprising discovery. His parents
have just bought a rundown house, and
while investigating the shed out back, he
finds a man/creature lying in the darkness
who he decides to help. "Feeding him
Chinese food and beer, the boy nurses the
creature, who possesses magical powers,
back to health."
It definitely sounds like an interesting
story (read more about it here), and it's
hard not to get intrigued at the thought of
Best Download Manager? [Hive Five
Call For Contenders]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 9:00:00 AM
It's hard to believe, but there was a time
in the not-so-distant past that if you wanted
to share a file or install a new application,
you had to get the files to your computer
through some sort of physical medium like
a floppy disk or CD. Today, we download
countless files from the internet without
giving a thought to the floppy disks of
yesteryear. But with all that downloading,
it can be difficult to keep track of and
manage all of your downloads in an
orderly fashion. That's why for this week's
Hive Five, we want you to tell us about
your favorite download management
puréed tomato, cream-based soup can be
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
Roth as an angel, alongside the likes of
Kelly MacDonald, Bill Milner(the cutie
from Son of Rambow), and John Simm.
The film has just started shooting in
Cardiff.
Filed under: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting
Permalink| Email this| Comments
application—whether it's the default
download tool built into your browser or a
completely separate add-on. Keep reading
for voting details and to nominate the
download manager you count on.
The Hive Five nomination round takes
place in the comments, where you post
your favorite tool for the job. We get
hundreds of comments, so to make your
nomination clear, please include it at the
top of your comment like so: VOTE:
Download Manager Goes Here. If you
don't follow this format, we may not count
your vote. To prevent tampering with the
results, votes from first-time commenters
may not be counted. After you've made
your nomination, let us know what makes
called a bisque too. We half-puréed this
smoked salmon bisque, which accounts for
the photograph. My father made this
delicious soup the other day after being
inspired by a bisque we had at a local
Google Chrome
First Look
[Screenshot Tour]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 5:38:04 AM
New beta web browser Google Chrome
officially hit the streets just a few minutes
ago, and we've rolled up our sleeves and
taken a quick look at everything the newest
browser on the block has to offer. Keep
reading for a detailed screenshot tour of
the exciting new Google Chrome browser.
The image associated with this post is
best viewed using a browser.
Similar to Speed Dial in Opera (or the
copycat Firefox extension), Google
Chrome offers shortcuts for users
whenever a new tab is opened. These
shortcuts include your most frequently
visited sites, site searches you often use,
it stand out from the competition.
About the Hive Five: The Hive Five
feature series asks readers to answer the
most frequently asked question we
get—"Which tool is the best?" Once a
week we'll put out a call for contenders
looking for the best solution to a certain
problem, then YOU tell us your favorite
tools to get the job done. Every Thursday,
we'll report back with the top five
recommendations and give you a chance to
vote on which is best. For an example,
check out last week's Hive Five Best
Password Managers.
bistro and wine bar. So creamy and good.
Continue reading "Smoked Salmon
Bisque" »
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
GOOGLE
continued from page 18
recent bookmarks, and even recently
closed tabs (in case you want to reopen a
tab). It may not seem completely accurate
at first, but in time it could turn out to be a
killer start page.
Chrome automatically watches search
boxes you use. Next time you want to
search that site, rather than opening the
page and finding the search box, you can
use the omni-bar to search that site quickly
and easily. For example, after one search at
Amazon, I could make a second search
from Chrome simply by heading to the
omni-bar, pressing "a" and then Tab to
autocomplete the Amazon search. Doing
that enables the Amazon search from the
location bar (which you can see from the
light blue box), so all you have to do is
enter your Amazon search terms and hit
Enter.
Like almost every browser these days,
Google Chrome has added a "porn mode"
called Incognito mode. When browsing in
Incognito, none of your activity will be
recorded on your computer. That means no
history, no files saved in the cache, no
cookies, and no evidence you've been
naughty. (Firefox users, check out
previously mentioned Stealther.)
All tabs are rearrangable just like in
Firefox, but you can also very easily break
out a tab from the tab window it's currently
held in. Dragging and dropping is easy and
satisfying.
LOL! On the LA Times religion site?
By tmatt
Submitted at 9/2/2008 1:16:52 AM
I have a bookmark set in my browsers
that takes me straight to the Los Angeles
Times page that contains the newspaper’s
religion-news offerings, no matter where
they appear in the newspaper.
Often there are stories linked to politics
— think social issues — that are on A1 but
don’t get listed as “religion” stories. We
call those “haunted” stories around this
here weblog.
Then you have a story like this one. This
made me laugh out loud.
I think someone linked to the online
edition got a bit trigger happy, deciding
that anything linked to Alaska Gov. Sarah
Palin must now, in some way or another,
The Google Chrome Task Manager gives
you an overview of the currently running
tabs and plug-ins just like the Windows
Task Manager. You can kill any running
process at any time from this window. The
quickest way to open Task Manager in
Chrome: Shift+Esc.
When you first install it, Chrome will
offer to import bookmarks, passwords, and
other settings from Firefox. I'm assuming
that if my default browser were Internet
Explorer that Chrome would import from
IE.
If you're keen on Google Chrome but not
hot on Google search, you can actually
change your default search engine if you
like.
One of the first things you'll notice when
navigating to different URLs is that
Google Chrome highlights the root domain
in every URL, presumably—among other
things—as a sort of anti-phishing feature.
If you're looking for this feature in your
current installation of Firefox, check out
the previously mentioned Location2
extension.
Password saving in Chrome looks and
acts very similarly to the new password
handling in Firefox 3.
Turn any webapp that you keep open all
day long (like Gmail, for example) into a
separate application through the tab drop-
down menu next to the "omni-bar." When
you create a new application in this way, it
be linked to religion or fundamentalism or
what have you. I thought that Dr. James
Dobson was the only person who could
find clear theological content in this kind
of political issue. Or, this is religion to
someone like former Sen. Bob Dole,
maybe.
Ready? Read on! From the religion-news
page:
ANCHORAGE — Alaska Gov. Sarah
Palin presents herself as an ally of
presidential candidate John McCain when
it comes to curbing wasteful government
spending.
On Friday, when McCain introduced her
as his running mate, she said she
“championed reform to end the abuses of
earmark spending,” the legislative
technique used to slip projects into
prompts you to create shortcuts on your
computer through a Google Gears prompt.
The resulting webapp has its own shortcut,
its own item in the taskbar, and an even
more consolidated browser
window—lacking a location bar, search
box, or any of the traditional browser tools.
It's sort of like having Prism built into
Firefox.
Web developers will be happy to see the
Google Chrome inspector, a relatively full-
featured DOM inspector and resources tool
very similar to what developers get in
Safari.
Bookmarking in Chrome is also almost
exactly like bookmarking in Firefox 3 with
the new star icon (it's just on the other side
of the location bar).
The options in Google Chrome are, as
you can see, extremely limited at the
moment—just like much of Google
Chrome.
Downloads don't break out into another
window, but instead show up in the taskbar
at the bottom of the browser. Considering
how much care Chrome gives to space
saving, the download bar is enormous and
a bit ungainly.
What do you think about the new
browser offering from the big G? Think
you'll give it the old college try? Let's hear
you thoughts in the comments. Google
Chrome
appropriations bills without rigorous
congressional review. But under her
leadership, the state of Alaska has
requested 31 earmarks worth $197.8
Tech Tips* Religion* Food*
Picasa Updates, Adds Face
Recognition [Digital Photos]
By Adam Pash (Lifehacker)
Submitted at 9/2/2008 8:00:00 AM
Google's Picasa is seeing updates on both
the web- and desktop-based versions of the
popular photo management application.
The biggest new feature is coming to
Picasa Web Albums in the form of people
tagging, a Facebook-style tool that lets you
tag faces in your photos by name and then
view pictures of that person by simply
searching. The difference between this and
Facebook is that Google identifies all of
the faces in your pictures automatically
million in next year’s federal budget,
according to the website of Sen. Ted
Stevens (R-Alaska), the former chairman
of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
Palin has recently been publicly critical
of requests made in past years by Stevens
and others for $223 million in federal
funds for a bridge from Ketchikan, Alaska,
to Gravina Island, calling it “the Bridge to
Nowhere,” a derogatory label critics
attached to the project.
As a candidate for governor in 2006, she
backed funding for the bridge.
Read it all, please. Make my day.
Can anyone find a term or two in this
story that led the copy desk’s computer
program to shuffle it over to RELIGION?
Bookmark to:
19
and groups together the faces that it thinks
are the same, making people tagging
extremely quick and easy to do. According
to technology web site CNET, Google will
also be releasing a new beta version of
Picasa for the desktop today, the main
improvements to which include a movie
maker and online synchronization of every
edit of a photo. The download isn't
showing up for me yet, but people tagging
is live, so give it a try and let's hear what
you think in the comments. Picasa Web
Albums[via CNET]
Peach Cobbler
By Elise
Submitted at 8/19/2008 1:46:22 AM
Updated, from the recipe archive.
My friends know me well. They know if
they invite me over and I see that they
have bushels of fresh-picked peaches just
waiting for a home that I will offer my
own kitchen counter space to take some of
those gorgeous peaches off their hands.
Such sacrifice, yes, I know. ;-) (Thanks
Suzanne!)
Peaches, nectarines, and all manner of
stone fruit are glorious in summer. Here is
a simple and delicious peach cobbler
recipe that we've used for several years.
Feel free to experiment with the ratios and
the fruit. You can easily add in some
blueberries or nectarines. If your peaches
aren't perfectly sweet to begin with, you
may need to add more sugar to the filling.
Continue reading "Peach Cobbler" »
20 Religion*
Evangelicals surprise the media
By Mollie
Submitted at 9/2/2008 3:29:33 PM
Sally Quinn, the atheist who professed
knowing “ practically nothing about
religion or the internet” when she started
the Washington Post/Newsweek religion
site On Faith, had a curious admission in
her most recent piece. Her essay is about
how the news of Bristol Palin’s pregnancy
will affect religious voters. She begins by
admitting that Sen. John McCain’s pick of
Gov. Sarah Palin angered her.
Anger seems to be a dominant feeling
coming from the current mainstream media
feeding frenzy. I have honestly never seen
anything quite like what’s happening here.
I know reporters can get a bit out of
control when dealing with their favorite
issue (politics) — but I am actually
shocked by the way journalists are
handling this story. CNN, for instance,
showed Barack Obama telling the media
that Palin’s daughter should be off-limits
— and then went right into a story that
used Palin’s daughter’s teenage pregnancy
as a hook to condemn abstinence
education. It didn’t sit well with many
viewers — and even a few of the
commentators whose time on air followed
the spot denounced it in the strongest
terms. The mainstream media notoriously
had to be forced to report on John
Edwards’ baby drama. But the story of
Palin’s daughter has made the front pages
of most major papers.
Anyway, Quinn’s piece is a great
example of why On Faith is better when it
involves actual reporting. After copping to
extreme anger and being insulted, she
alleges that McCain’s pick will not go over
well with “family values” voters. I almost
stopped reading after she accused McCain
of picking Palin because he’s trying to
“win an election.” (Yes, I imagine that
political calculation did go into his
thinking, Sally.) Anyway, here we go:
And now we learn the 17-year-old
daughter, Bristol, is pregnant. She and the
father of the child plan to marry. This may
be a hard one for the Republican
conservative family-values crowd to
swallow. Of course, this can happen in any
family. But it must certainly raise the
question among the evangelical base about
whether Sarah Palin has been enough of a
hands-on mother.
McCain claims he knew about the
pregnancy, and was not at all concerned.
Why not? Not only do we have a woman
with five children, including an infant with
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
coming months. Not to mention the
grandchild. This would inevitably be an
enormous distraction for a new vice
president (or president) in a time of global
turmoil. Not only in terms of her job, but
from a media standpoint as well.
Nice. Question her parenting skills and
push the idea that women must put
everything on hold until they have no
concerns at home. Yay feminism! She
actually goes on to say that women should
not get involved in politics until their
children are older. It’s like up is down in
newsrooms. Anyway, what about her
contention that evangelicals won’t support
Palin? Here’s the best part:
Southern Baptist leaders like Richard
Land and Al Mohler have praised
McCain’s choice. But these are the same
men who support this statement from the
2000 Baptist Faith & Message:
“A wife is to submit herself graciously to
the servant leadership of her husband even
as the church willingly submits to the
headship of Christ. She, being in the image
of God as is her husband and thus equal to
him, has the God-given responsibility to
respect her husband and to serve as his
helper in managing the household and
nurturing the next generation.”
Okay, Quinn. You’re a reporter. Rather
than quote this statement completely out of
context, how about you pick up the phone
(there should be one near your computer
where you typed this piece) and call either
of these men and ask them how this
statement on marriage relates to women’s
work outside the home.
Sheesh. Newsflash: Baptists believe the
Bible to be sacred Scripture. Now read
Ephesians 5. See how it says Christian
marriage is about wives submitting to their
husbands as the church submits to Christ?
See how it says husbands are to sacrifice
everything for and love their wives as
Christ did for the church? This is basic
Christian teaching. Does it play into
whether Land and Mohler support or
oppose Palin? I highly doubt it. But maybe
you should ask them before you quote
them completely out of context. I really
don’t get what that statement has to do
with Quinn’s story at all.
A far better story came from Associated
Press, which discussed how evangelical
special needs, but a woman whose 17-year
-old child will need her even more in the
EVANGELICALS page 21
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
Blackberry singing in the dead of night
By tmatt
Submitted at 9/2/2008 5:11:12 PM
If you had any doubts, it has been proven
that we are in an age in which the
mainstream press is trying to figure out
where the blogging ends and the news
begins.
The official voice of newsroom water
coolers inside the Beltway — that would
be Howard Kurtz of the Washington
Post— has a piece up talking about how
the rumors about Gov. Sarah Palin spread
from the alpha site of the Democratic Party
netroots, the Daily Kos, over into terrain
closer and closer to the mainstream. It
should be noted that this is the left media
version of the role that talk radio has
played on some stories affecting
Democrats.
Out of all of this, the truly big scandal is
the role of Andrew Sullivan in validating
the rumors, but I will leave commentary on
that to others. Here is a crucial piece of the
wider debate, from Kurtz:
The controversy erupted as a debate was
taking shape over whether some media
criticism of Palin’s limited government
experience has been sexist. Liberal radio
host Ed Schultz was telling listeners
Monday that Palin was an “empty
pantsuit” who had set off a “bimbo alert.”
Shortly afterward, the pregnancy statement
was released and, without missing a beat,
Schultz said her daughter’s situation was
relevant because the governor is a
champion of moral values.
But a liberal reader posting on Salon
under the name Redstocking Grandma
denounced the pregnancy allegations:
“This is just creepy; it feels stalkerish.”
What some Democratic supporters were
doing, she said, is “revolting.”
The most interesting facet of all of this,
for me, is the way in which Palin’s family
Chicken Enchiladas Verdes
By Elise
Submitted at 9/1/2008 8:04:40 PM
The tomatillos in my garden are all
ripening at once. Have you ever cooked
with tomatillos? They look like little
lanterns, with their green papery husks.
Sometimes people mistake them for green
tomatoes (doesn't help that their Spanish
has turned the working-mom wars upside
down. I mean, back in the days of Promise
Keepers, it was the stuff of anecdotes that
some evangelical Dads made sacrifices in
order to further the careers and ambitions
of their wives and were even better around
the house than the liberated Alan Aldas of
the blue zip codes. Now, we have a test
case being lived out — flaws and all — in
front of the national press.
As the Divine Ms. MZ has stressed, a
number of times, this whole idea of
husbands and wives in conservative homes
living complex lives is not all that
surprising to people outside of mainstream
newsrooms. There are evangelical dads
with jobs and some with careers and the
same is true of the mothers, out there.
For me, the most interesting, and in some
ways infuriated, story that has surfaced in
the blitz of coverage today — there are
THREE, count ‘em three, stories in the
New York Times wave on A1— was the
Washington Post story with the double
headline: “Gov. Mom — The Land of the
Midnight Sun’s New Claim To Fame:
Being Led by a 24-Hour Mother.”
Yes, the big investigative story right
now: Is Palin still breastfeeding her baby,
Trig? Did Sen. John McCain’s crew vet
her on this policy question?
Clearly, the Post is getting feedback on
its coverage from readers. Meanwhile, how
are the working moms in all of these big
newsrooms feeling about this coverage?
Any folks there having children in their
’40s? Anyone there with complex family
dynamics? How are all of the small-town,
big-family evangelical moms and dads in
those newsrooms holding up? No need to
answer that one.
Back to that Post report. Here is a big
chunk of that, with many crucial details:
Palin has carefully portrayed herself
throughout her career as someone
name is "tomate verde"); they are related to
tomatoes (same family, different genus),
but the taste is quite different. They are
used to make the distinctive Mexican salsa
verde or green salsa. In this chicken
enchiladas recipe, the sauce is made with
boiled tomatillos (you could also roast
them), serrano chile peppers, and sour
cream. The filling is made with shredded
committed to both family and profession
— and tough enough to handle both. She
made a show of dismissing the chef at the
governor’s mansion saying she wanted to
do her own cooking, and that the kids were
old enough to make their own sandwiches.
And no one can recall her ever having a
full-time babysitter.
“You walk into her office and Piper is
sitting there, the baby is in the crib —
that’s just the way it is. This is how she
lives her life. Someone who was in a
meeting with her recently said she was
meat from chicken thighs; the deeper
flavor of the dark meat holds up much
discreetly nursing Trig,” said Palin’s
biographer Kaylene Johnson.
From interviews with those closest to
Palin emerges a description of a hectic
lifestyle, but one in which the hominess
and rural community of Alaska have
enabled her to have her kids around her
while she works and have offered a deep
bench of family and friends for child-care
support. She has shown up to meetings and
news conferences carrying Trig in a baby
pouch.
She and her husband kept their family
better to the chile and tomatillo sauce than
chicken breasts. I made these for dinner
tonight and even the kid, my young
nephew, went for seconds. Not a smidgen
of sauce was left on any of our plates.
Continue reading "Chicken Enchiladas
Verdes" »
Religion* Food* 21
house in the small town of Wasilla, where
her parents, three siblings and closest
friends live. Most of the year, she is able to
commute back and forth from Anchorage
daily, except when the legislature is in
session in Juneau. Todd Palin is currently
on leave from his job as an oil field
worker, making it possible for him to be a
full-time dad, said two friends.
And on that life-and-death journalistic
question of the day:
The McCain campaign said it could not
confirm that Palin was still breastfeeding
Trig, but the governor said as much in a
interview with People magazine on Friday.
“What I’ve had to do. . . is, in the middle
of the night, put down the BlackBerrys and
pick up the breast pump,” she worked into
an answer to a question about whether she
was a morning person.
Now, does all of this make Palin more or
less attractive to feminist women in
newsrooms? How about working moms
and/or big-family moms in ordinary church
pews?
As strange as it sounds, both of those
questions are relevant at the moment.
Clearly this woman is no wallflower.
Then again, I know lots and lots of very
traditional female believers in a variety of
religious settings who are not wallflowers
either.
So here is what needs to happen next. I
hope reporters go take a long look in the
mirror, then go back to their computers and
call up the search engines. It’s time for
some humble, low-key visits to listen to
some women and men in some evangelical
church fellowship halls. Look for the folks
who have a bunch of kids and are getting
along just fine, thank you very much.
What a world we live in.
Bookmark to:
EVANGELICALS
continued from page 20
voters would feel about the pregnancy
news:
Key evangelical leaders rallied to Sarah
Palin’s support Monday amid news that
her 17-year-old daughter, Bristol, was
having a child.
“Before, they were excited about her,
EVANGELICALS page 22
22 Food*
EVANGELICALS
continued from page 21
with the Down syndrome baby,”
conservative, anti-tax activist Grover
Norquist said. “But now with this, they are
over the moon. It reinforces the fact that
this family lives its pro-life values.” . . .
Evangelical leader Richard Land also
backed Palin completely.
“This is the pro-life choice. The fact that
people will criticize her for this shows the
astounding extent to which the secular
critics of the pro-life movement just don’t
get it,” Land said in a statement.
“Those who criticize the Palin family
don’t understand that we don’t see babies
as a punishment but as a blessing. Barack
Obama said that if one of his daughters
made a mistake and got pregnant out of
wedlock, he wouldn’t want her to be
punished with a child. Pro-lifers don’t see
a child as punishment.”
The immediate support of these major
figures, who offered universal praise for
the Palins’ actions after learning their
daughter was pregnant, provides the filter
through which conservative Christian
voters will process the development.
Most important for Palin, an elder
statesman of the movement, Focus on the
Family founder James Dobson, released a
statement lauding the Palins for acting in
keeping with the group’s policies and
practices:
“We have always encouraged the parents
to love and support their children and
always advised the girls to see their
pregnancies through, even though there
will of course be challenges along the way.
That is what the Palins are doing, and they
should be commended once again for not
just talking about their pro-life and pro-
family values, but living them out even in
the midst of trying circumstances.
“Being a Christian does not mean you’re
perfect. Nor does it mean your children are
perfect. But it does mean there is
forgiveness and restoration when we
confess our imperfections to the Lord. I’ve
been the beneficiary of that forgiveness
and restoration in my own life countless
times, as I’m sure the Palins have,”
Dobson said.
I said it was better — but it’s certainly
not perfect. For one thing, I’m pretty sure
Grover Norquist is no “key evangelical
leader.” And while it’s well and good to
get quotes from Land and others, what
does it mean that they are the “filter
through which conservative Christian
voters will process the development”? Is
this a reference to Michael Weisskopf’s
Washington Post news article that claimed
evangelicals were poor, uneducated and
easy to command? And why is James
Dobson’s statement “most important for
Palin”? I don’t get why it would be more
important than anything else.
Otherwise, it’s nice to see the media
correctly quoting evangelical leaders.
Usually they make them seem like dour
fussybots intent on condemning everyone
for everything. While it is true that they
condemn sin — they also emphasize the
importance of repentance and forgiveness.
That part of the equation tends to be
ignored by the press. These folks may take
a hard line against sin that is proudly
displayed or defiantly defended but they’re
not going to condemn a teenage girl who is
about to give birth to a child rather than
abort it.
In other words, Quinn’s lack of
knowledge about evangelicals shows. She
should try talking to some and see if they
really do match up with her stereotypes.
Byron York of National Review has a
fascinating piece about how the McCain
team actually personally called “40 top
evangelical and other cultural conservative
leaders” and gave each a chance to
respond. York reports that the response
was unanimous support for Palin. He then
goes to talk to a few delegations about the
matter. Not surprising to anyone who
knows human nature, some of the
delegates speak about their own teenage
pregnancies and how it brought them into
the pro-life movement.
Another example of advancing
stereotypes was found in a New York
Times story a reader passed along. The
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
headline and first graph promise tumult in
the GOP and the story says that “social
conservatives” and “groups that oppose
abortion rights” may not continue to
support Palin.
But then the article goes on to quote a
ton of people and all of them — except for
one Democrat — are completely
supportive of Palin. The reporter even asks
if Palin will be thrown off the ticket —
despite the fact that no Republicans seem
concerned, not even the evangelical types,
and McCain says he knew (along with
everyone in Wasilla) and he’s not
concerned:
Early reaction among women at the
Republican convention to the news about
Bristol Palin’s pregnancy was almost
uniformly supportive.
“This happens to people in all walks of
life,” said Karen Minnis, 54, a state
representative from Oregon.
She also said she had no problem with
Governor Palin continuing to campaign
while her daughter is pregnant and she
herself has an infant son. . . .
When Pam Younggren, 61, of Fargo,
N.D., was told the news of the 17-year-
old’s pregnancy, she shrugged. “Well, she
wouldn’t be the first one,” she said.
So the religious voters are not in tumult,
as the New York Times claimed. It’s just
bizarre headline/lede writing.
I actually think this story provides the
perfect prism through which to analyze
some evangelicals’ approach to sin,
repentance and forgiveness. I think it has
to be one of the most misunderstood
Bread and Butter Pickles
aspects of evangelicals and would
By Elise make, and if you are planning to make
Submitted at 8/24/2008 12:29:18 AM
them as refrigerator pickles (storing them
contribute greatly to the public discourse. in the cold fridge, to be eaten within
Unless the media need to keep defining Boxes filled with cucumbers from the weeks), you can skip a lot of the canning
evangelicals who are politically farmers market, scores of mason jars, big steps. This is a basic recipe which we
conservative as bogeyman who should be pots, lots of activity in the kitchen, fresh happen to love, cobbled together from
feared by all, that is. homemade pickles. These are some of my various editions of the Joy of Cooking plus
Every time I write about evangelicals, I memories from summers growing up. My some online research. The ice helps keep
want to include cover art from grandmother (dad's mother) and my the cucumbers crispy, as does cooking
Evangelicals, the band. And now I have. parents used to pickle a lot when I was a them just a short time. You can experiment
Bookmark to: kid. My dad's favorite was spicy carrot and with the pickling spices, and the pickling
cauliflower pickles (I'm still waiting for the vegetables for that matter. A friend
recipe); my favorite was sweet watermelon recently told me about an idea for bread
rind pickles (can't find watermelons with and butter jalapeño pickles that sound too
thick enough rinds to make these good not to try to make. Do you have a
anymore). Sweet pickles like these bread favorite bread and butter pickle recipe? If
and butter pickles (who came up with that so, please tell us about it in the comments.
name?) never lasted that long around here; Continue reading "Bread and Butter
we kids gobbled them up. Pickles" »
Bread and butter pickles are easy to
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
When reporters attack
By Mollie
Submitted at 9/1/2008 6:03:11 AM
Judging from my inbox, there are more
than a few readers who are disappointed
with the mainstream media coverage of
Gov. Sarah Palin. You are not alone.
Conservative writer Bill Kristol has some
theories about why the mainstream media
are behaving the way they are. But while
most of the hostile mainstream media
reaction is dealing with purely political
angles, there are also some religion angles
that are being handled poorly.
Absolutely the worst hit job I saw came
from Wired. Normally I love Wired and I
think it has some of the best new media
coverage out there. But Brandon Keim ran
a hit piece that was grossly unfair. Worse,
the editors kept it as the top story on the
main page throughout the day. Headline? “
McCain’s VP Wants Creationism Taught
in School.”
A few of my very angry reporter friends
passed this story along to me as evidence
of why Palin is unacceptably beyond the
pale. References to her “ creationism” have
appeared in many, many mainstream
media reports. Newsweek also had that
awkward, awkward bit about the
“Assembly of God church, a Pentecostal
denomination that believes God created the
world at every step.” I don’t even know
what that means.
Anyway, let’s look at the evidence to
support the claim that Palin is some rabid
Creationist. Here’s how the first three
paragraphs of the Wired piece ran on the
front page all day Friday:
Republican vice presidential candidate
Sarah Palin wants creationism taught in
science classes.
In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, the soon-
to-be governor of Alaska trotted out the
usual creationist education canard: “Teach
both. You know, don’t be afraid of
education. Healthy debate is so important,
and it’s so valuable in our schools. I am a
proponent of teaching both.”
Teaching evolution and creationism in a
scientifically balanced way is simply
impossible. Evolution is accepted by
scientists as driving the development of
life on Earth. Creationism, which puts a
(Christian) God in the engine room of life,
is unsupported by science. Its arguments
have been roundly dismissed by scientists
— many of whom, it should be noted,
believe in God. They’re just sensible
enough to understand where science ends
and religion begins.
Yes, that was Wired’s attempt at
objective journalism.
Oddly, I just went back to check on the
story and it has been radically,
dramatically changed. Look at the opening
three graphs of the new piece:
Republican vice-presidential candidate
Sarah Palin wants creationism taught in
science classes.
In a 2006 gubernatorial debate, the soon-
to-be governor of Alaska said of evolution
and creation education, “Teach both. You
know, don’t be afraid of education.
Healthy debate is so important, and it’s so
valuable in our schools. I am a proponent
of teaching both.”
Asked by the Anchorage Daily News
whether she believed in evolution, Palin
declined to answer, but said that “I don’t
think there should be a prohibition against
debate if it comes up in class.”
You should go back and read the first
one again. It’s just embarrassing. I hope
that Keim got a good talking to from his
editors.
In fact, even his heavily edited/re-written
piece is unfair. That Alaska Daily News
article he links to provides the context for
the discussion:
In an interview Thursday, Palin said she
meant only to say that discussion of
alternative views should be allowed to
arise in Alaska classrooms:
“I don’t think there should be a
prohibition against debate if it comes up in
class. It doesn’t have to be part of the
curriculum.”
She added that, if elected, she would not
push the state Board of Education to add
such creation-based alternatives to the
state’s required curriculum.
Members of the state school board,
which sets minimum requirements, are
appointed by the governor and confirmed
by the Legislature.
“I won’t have religion as a litmus test, or
anybody’s personal opinion on evolution
or creationism,” Palin said.
Palin has occasionally discussed her
lifelong Christian faith during the
governor’s race but said teaching
creationism is nothing she has campaigned
about or even given much thought to.
So, Wired, if that was your sole source
for the story — and it was — why run that
hit piece all day saying that Palin is some
big proponent of teaching Creationism in
school? I realize the mainstream media is
apoplectic over the selection of Gov. Palin
as McCain’s VP. But yegads, people!
Reporters and editors need to remember
that their job is to present the news, not
their unhinged opinions. Calm down, and
give your pieces a reread and a good edit
before you publish, mmm-kay?
Bookmark to:
Religion* Food* 23
Shrimp Fried
Rice
By Jaden Hair
Submitted at 8/21/2008 3:41:13 AM
Please welcome guest author Jaden Hair
of Steamy Kitchen who is doing a series of
Chinese American food recipes for us here
on Simply Recipes. ~Elise
The first time I attempted to cook fried
rice on my own, I was 15 and my parents
and little brother were in Europe on
vacation. I stayed home to attend summer
school and to enjoy a little freedom living
on my own for a couple of weeks.
Since my Mom was the queen in the
kitchen, I didnt really cook too much back
then. My job was just to eat and enjoy her
wonderful home cooked meals. But that
week, after 3 days of instant ramen, I was
longing for something a little more
substantial. Too lazy to bike to the market,
I decided on fried rice. I steamed a batch of
rice and found enough bits of vegetables to
make the dish.
It was a total disaster. Mushy, soggy and
goopy. Back to Top Ramen for another 10
days.
When the family returned, I told Mom
about my fried rice misfortune and she
laughed, You better start learning from me
before you go off to college or youll
starve! And a crash course in fried rice
followed the next day.
So here I am to teach you what I learned
from my Mom. These are her secrets to
light, fluffy and flavorful fried rice, no
matter what ingredients you use.
Continue reading "Shrimp Fried Rice" »
24 Religion* Food*
Bringing Wasilla to life and life to Wasilla
By Mollie
Submitted at 9/2/2008 6:25:39 AM
Of all the stories I’ve seen about Bristol
Palin’s pregnancy, one stood out as
particularly good. TIME’s Nathan
Thornburgh reported on the story from
Wasilla, Alaska, and the trip there seemed
to have affected him — in a good way.
So his name is Levi.
That’s about the only thing that I didn’t
know about Bristol Palin’s pregnancy. The
rest of the details I picked up almost
without trying, while talking about other
things with townsfolk — some who know
the governor and her family well, some
who don’t. It was, more or less, an open
secret. And everyone was saying the same
thing: the governor’s 17-year-old daughter
is pregnant, the father is her boyfriend, and
it’s really nobody’s business beyond that.
I happen to agree.
This tiny town wedged in between the
Chugach and Talkeetna mountain ranges
has intrigued the whole country since John
McCain’s surprise Friday announcement
that Wasilla’s favorite daughter, Sarah
Palin, would be his running mate. Sure,
some of the interest was a prelude to
attacks on Palin’s readiness for national
office. But Wasilla also offered a welcome
chance to get specific about the geography
of a politician. It’s one of our most
cherished myths, that a leader can come
from somewhere and you can guess at their
qualities not just by what they say, but
where they live.
Well, here’s the deal: small towns have
their own value systems, and in this
situation those values are more a lot more
valid than the dispassionate, pushy
inquisitiveness that political journalism
encourages.
With all the drama from this story in the
regular press, this account actually makes
you want to read more. It adds insight and
context and real people — not inside-the-
beltway pundits — in a way that actually
engages the reader.
He quotes the various residents as a way
of exploring Palin’s values and considering
that the hook is her daughter’s pregnancy,
it comes off very even-handed — and, in
light of what’s being spewed elsewhere,
decent:
People in Wasilla are Alaskan tough, so
not only does a thing like teen pregnancy
not seem like anyone’s damn business, but
it’s also not seen as the calamity so many
people in the lower 48 might think it is.
This is dangerous country — it’s not just
the roughneck jobs on cable reality shows.
It’s real life here. I listened to the
absolutely heartbreaking story of how the
godfather of Track Palin, Sarah’s oldest
son, died in small plane crash just minutes
after having dropped off four kids. Another
family invited me into their home and told
their incredible story; with one son in Iraq,
their other son was working on a conveyor
line in Anchorage, got caught in the belt
and had his head partially crushed. He
lived to stand across the kitchen table from
me and his parents, looking fully healed
just three months later, grinning at his
dumb luck and wondering what comes
next in life. “It makes you realize that a
thing like a little teenage pregnancy isn’t
such a big deal,” his mom said.
“Bristol—and lots of other girl like her
out there — are going to be just fine.”
Amazing how much more interesting
stories are when there are real people in
them. Anyway, there was one part that
wasn’t so great:
The fact is, regardless of what you will
hear over the next few days, Bristol’s
pregnancy is not a legitimate political
issue. Sarah Palin is a longterm member of
a group called Feminists for Life, which is
not opposed to birth control. So you
probably can’t tag her for consigning
young people to unwanted pregnancies.
Actually, it’s not correct to say that
Feminists for Life isn’t opposed to birth
control (sorry for all the negatives there).
They actually don’t take a stand on the
issue of birth control. Some members are
opposed. Some aren’t. But to say that,
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper
because of this stance, we can’t “tag her
for consigning young people to unwanted
pregnancies” is just atrocious. If she was
opposed to birth control, we could? If she
supported abstinence, we could blame her
for unwanted pregnancies? Are you
kidding me? The reporter is free to have
any opinions he wants about birth control,
but he should keep them as his opinions.
But I don’t want to harp on it too much. I
actually enjoyed this story — apart from
the content, even — much more than any
other political story I’ve read in a long
time. And normally I hate stories where
reporters go into the first person. Still,
exploring how values shape a candidate
can be very cold when it’s done from a
distance. By traveling to Palin’s
hometown, this story came alive.
Bookmark to:
Sloppy Joes
By Elise
Submitted at 8/27/2008 7:20:45 AM
Just hearing the words "sloppy joe" from
my mother used to send us kids into a
tizzy. There was something wonderfully
fun about getting to eat a burger/sandwich
that was messy by design. I've been
waiting to make this when my nephew was
in town because sloppy joes really are a
quintessential kid food. Well the kid is
here, and after he explained to me that he
didn't like tomatoes with his hamburger
and he wanted his onions on top, and I
explained to him that sloppy joes are made
with the onions mixed in with the beef, and
he eats spaghetti so what's wrong with
tomatoes, anyway?, he relented. And when
called to dinner he ate the whole thing
(with high praise), even though he had
been making and eating s'mores all day.
(Wouldn't touch the coleslaw though. Kids.
Lest you think we are the ones feeding him
s'mores, he knows how to make them
himself and sneaks into the kitchen when
we aren't looking.)
Continue reading "Sloppy Joes" »
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper Religion* Food* 25

RIP: The religion beat (part II)

By tmatt
Submitted at 9/1/2008 11:54:09 PM

What a week. In addition to all that is

going on in religion, politics and the
politics of religion, I am ultra-busy due to
the arrival of this fall’s students for work at
the Washington Journalism Center (my
day job, in other words).
However, in the midst of all of that I
wanted to share a follow-up comment
linked to our discussions of that recent post
entitled “ RIP: The religion beat.” That
post pivoted on a recent sad column by
religion writer Cary McMullen of The
Ledger in Lakeland, Fla.
That post went up at the official water
cooler of American journalism, the Jim
Romenesko weblog at Poynter.org. Click
here to see that item. When your views get
posted at Romenesko, people tend to start
talking. Anyway, Cary dropped me a note
expressing some follow-up thoughts and,
as longtime GetReligion readers know, we
go out of our way to further dialogues with
religion-beat professionals about their
work on this beat. And, in this case, their
views about the future of that work.
I asked Cary to add a bit to his private
note to me and I post that here, with his
permission:
A column I wrote recently about the
current state of religion journalism has
attracted a certain amount of attention,
including a post by tmatt on this blog features and now report to an editor on the
Local side. It makes little practical
A whole industry (and American public
discourse) is waiting for a form of digital
Welcome Jaden!
(which in turn was cited on Poynter’s
Romenesko). Two days before that column difference. Frankly, I don’t really care advertising more attractive (and less By Elise Asian food, take a look at this post on
appeared in my newspaper, Ledger where my stories appear. infuriating) than a pop-up ad. As a result of Submitted at 8/20/2008 3:50:22 PM
cooking steak, and her fresh ginger tips.)
employees assembled to hear our publisher I read on Poynter just this morning that this economic earthquake, we are having Well, with the eyes of the world on
the paper in Portland, Maine, may be in trouble hanging on to the religion-beat The first time I stumbled upon Jaden Beijing this week, I'm delighted to let you
announce further cuts. Thirty-six total, 11 Hair's Steamy Kitchen food blog I had know that Jaden will be guest authoring a
in the newsroom. Most of those were copy danger of folding. Our publisher did hint professionals that we have, right as global
darkly in his talk to us that our survival news trends serve up more and more and major blog envy. Who was this hilarious series on Simply Recipes, focusing on
editors, page designers and other support and irreverent woman? And how was it classic Chinese American food recipes. In
personnel, but there were already a lot of could be at stake. more major news stories that are haunted
We religion reporters have no ark to save by the facts, themes and symbols of that she could make food look that good? I her first post Jaden shares her mom's
open reporters’ positions. We had been was hooked, an early convert to Jaden's
understaffed for years. us from the flood of red ink that threatens religion. secrets to perfect fried rice. Welcome to
to drown the known newspaper world. The Sobering to say the least. Again. humor, playfulness, and drop-dead Simply Recipes, Jaden!
Within a couple of weeks, we were delicious Asian food. (Actually, not only
informed of a reorganization in the industry’s sins have condemned us, So I will ask again. Someone has to pay
newsroom. Essentially, we would all be too. So, now it really is a matter of to hire professionals to report new
local news reporters. We would keep our swimming around, trying to just have a information about news events and trends
beats, but new ones would be added. I was newspaper to write for. The Ledger has in the real world (as opposed to blogging
given a few local private colleges to cover. been good to me. The way I see it, I’m about what the real reporters write). We
And, we were told, we had to be prepared now trying to do my bit to keep us afloat. need more quality religion coverage, not
to cover any story at any time. That includes praying. less. Where might we find it? Remember!
The features section for which I wrote Sobering to say the least. Not commentary. Real reporting.
most of the time was already scheduled to I stand by the views (thus, that snarky, Bookmark to:
be reduced and folded into the back of the sharky second piece of art) that I aired in
Local section. So, I was moved out of my earlier post.
26 Religion* Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper

Palin coverage in the heartland

By dpulliam
Submitted at 9/3/2008 4:16:51 AM

Much of the religion coverage of

Republican presidential candidate John
McCain’s running mate Sarah Palin has
focused on how she has thrilled
evangelical voters. In other words, the
focus is on the horse race and not on the
substance. Since the pick was announced,
there has been some coverage of the
substance of Palin, but a lot of it still
focuses on the process that was involved in
selecting Palin.
In the heartland and in Ohio specifically,
newspapers have had predictable coverage.
The Columbus Dispatch ran an article
focusing on how Palin could draw
evangelicals (and women) to vote for the
Republicans in November.
Ohio Right to Life Executive Director
Mike Gonidakis praised McCain’s choice,
saying Palin will energize social
conservatives: “It’s a definite game-
changer, not only for the pro-life
movement, but for the (GOP) base here in
Ohio.”
But Emily’s List, which raises money for
female Democratic candidates, said Palin
won’t hurt Obama among women.
That description of Emily’s List should
have noted that the group supports only
candidates who are also support abortion
rights. However, that almost goes without
saying.
Some articles have focused on local
Democratic Party responses to the Palin
pick. Others have mentioned local
Republicans enthusiasm. The enthusiasm
typically focuses on evangelical voters.
Other articles don’t mention religious
issues at all.
Since there is no real practical way for
me to canvas all of the papers around the
country, please send us local articles that
discuss whether or not GOP officials
believe Palin will help bring out more
voters that otherwise might have stayed
home. My hometown newspaper, The
Indianapolis Star, wrote in an article
Tuesday that Hoosier delegates at the
Republican Convention were excited about
Palin. The only suggestion of religious
issues is the mention that Palin is pro-life
and the fact her 17-year-old unmarried
daughter is pregnant.
The Dayton Daily News writes little on
Palin’s personal views, but repeats the
often repeated story about Palin’s pro-life
views and the way those views have
influenced her personal actions:
Palin, 44, already has made history. She
is both the first woman and the youngest
person to hold the Alaska governorship.
She is the first woman on a Republican
presidential ticket, and if elected, would be
the first female vice president. She is pro-
life, and was celebrated in the anti-abortion
movement when she refused to consider an
abortion after learning Trig was likely to
have Down syndrome.
People have marveled at how well she
has juggled her public and private life as a
mother of five children, including one with
special needs.
Much more could be said about Palin’s
personal religious views and how they
influence her public policies. From what I
have seen most local newspapers have
either relied heavily on wire services or
other major newspaper’s coverage of the
Palin pick. Part of the challenge is that
Palin’s religious views are hardly typical,
at least compared to what reporters are
used to seeing in national politicians, and
remain somewhat of a mystery.
I am hoping there are some local
heartland-oriented newspapers out there
with the resources to cover how the Palin
pick is seen in their local community. And
maybe they will mention religious issues.
Bookmark to:
More gay-marriage
cheerleading
By Mark Stricherz
Submitted at 9/1/2008 10:39:20 PM
In the spring, I encouraged reporters to
write about the California Supreme Court’s
decision to redefine marriage from the
viewpoint of religious traditionalists and
not just religious liberals and seculars. So I
was happy to come across a recent story in
The Los Angeles Times with the headline
of “California churches plan a big push
against same-sex marriage.” Finally, I
thought, on this issue reporters were
getting traditional religion.
I was wrong.
Reporter Jessica Garrison quoted from
religious leaders who have taken a public
position on Proposition 8, the November
ballot initiative that would define marriage
as the union of one man and one woman.
Of the seven sources quoted, three support
the ballot measure, while four oppose it.
And this was a story about religious
supporters of the ban. Not only was the
headline misleading, but the two sides
were not presented fairly. As Mollie noted,
the LAT did this back in May.
Religious traditionalists were quoted in
the story defending their position. Well,
one was anyway. Here was his quote:
“This is a rising up over a 5,000-year-old
institution that is being hammered right
now,” said Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline
Church, an evangelical congregation in La
Mesa. Garlow said that, while he supported
Proposition 22, he was not nearly as
involved as this time around, when he has
helped organize 3,400-person conference
calls across denominations to coordinate
campaign support for the proposed
constitutional amendment.
“What binds us together is one common
obsession: . . . marriage,” Garlow said.
He added that many people of faith,
regardless of their religion, believe that “if
Proposition 8 fails, there is an inevitable
loss of religious freedom.”
Three sentences — that was the extent of
Garrison’s account for why religious
traditionalist leaders seek to ban
homosexual marriage. And none of the
sentences elaborated as to why Garrison
believes the measure’s defeat would result
in “an inevitable loss of religious
freedom.” Now maybe leaders of the ballot
measure can’t string a few sentences
MORE page 27
Daily -Click and Print- Newspaper 27
MORE
continued from page 26
together. But given that its leaders include All I am asking is for reporters to give
bishops and well-known pastors, I doubt it. religious traditionalists a fair hearing. Yet
By contrast, Garrison quotes not one, not except for a Modesto Bee story I quoted
two, but three religious opponents of the from in June, reporters have not given
ban. Their quotes are interesting and help them one.
explain their position. One was an Bookmark to:
Episcopal priest, another was a rabbi, and
another was a liberal mainline church with
a special outreach to homosexuals.