I'll be away on vacation until August 2nd and couldn't blog even if I wanted to. Which I'm pretty sure I won't.
Till then, why not poke around the blogroll over there on the right? Betcha you find some cool things you didn't know about. If you must read something that I've written, for some perverse reason, have you been through all these?
Mysteries of the beauty industry: "CoQ10 is an essential antioxidant found in every living cell of your body, and is the energy source for all new cells and smooth, firm skin. As you age, your natural level of CoQ10 diminishes and your skin begins to show the signs of aging, such as fine lines and wrinkles. Supplementing your skin with patented CoQ10 helps prevent and reverse this inevitable aging process."
[Thanks mom]
Sorry, but the top of the page was getting text heavy, and it's been a while since we had any Lohanboobies for our faithful defamer visitors.
Anyway, over at Romenesko I've raised an important question for the journalistic community: What really happened at the Linda Ronstadt concert?
Continue reading "Warning: photo has nothing to do with post" »
I almost missed this poker game with Dick Cheney when it was linked up on Wonkette yesterday. Don't you make the same mistake.
Almost a year ago I posted about funny sex chat pranksters, casually throwing in an aside about Perverted Justice, which I described as "walking that fine line between pranking and entrapment."
But according to this scary new article in the Phoenix New Times, PJ doesn't walk lines at all -- it obliterates them, with chilling results for people who, while arguably sickos, aren't by and large harmful or likely to commit crimes IRL. [via Obscure Store]
What makes PJ's fascist tactics all the more unappetizing is that -- as I suggested in my initial post on the subject -- they're clearly enjoying their little underage sex games every bit as much as their victims are. They're not just thugs, they're hypocrites.
Just days after I finally got around to expressing my enthusiasm for Fiddish, the blog that Steven I. Weiss created for The Forward, mercurial Forward editor J.J. Goldberg fired Weiss for mysterious reasons.
Weiss is too good a blogger to stay quiet for long, but fie on Goldberg and The Forward for pulling the plug on a blog that matched anything Denton has done for accelerating to top speed so quickly out of the gate.
If David Brooks' broad generalizations are right, there's no reason it shouldn't be possible to create a quiz that tells you if you're a Red or Blue Stater.
But despite the fact that I reside in just about the Capitol of Bluedom (maybe the suburbs thereof since moving from the Upper West Side), I came out almost dead center.
PJ at sexualchocolate takes a stab at figuring out where the quiz (and by extension Brooks) goes wrong: "What frustrates me about the more glib and simplistic varieties of the red America-blue America hypothesis is that it lacks predictive power: your cultural touchstones are, at best, a rough guideline to how you'll vote or even as to where you live."
In the August issue of Playboy, on newstands any day now, I have a short, amusing article on bishoujo games. (It started out as a longer, funnier article for Radar, but it was getting moldy wating for Maer to collect his $15 mil).
Bishoujo means "pretty girl," and as the gentle name implies, these are games in which the object is to have raunchy, hardcore sex with as many women as possible. The piece, which may be the first in a series on Japanese weirdness we're calling "Occidental Tourist," is on page 22. It's not available online, sorry, but feel free to enjoy this photograph of Miss August modeling an iPod Mini.
Continue reading "I only play them for the branching narratives" »
Here's the part that should've tipped off the suckers who befriended a guy they thought was Miramax's Bob Weinstein that he just might not be on the level.
"Bob Weinstein, Cooper told Padilla, had been exiled by brother Harvey when he came out of the closet a few years back. He claimed to be sitting out a noncompete clause in Atlanta with a lover and an adopted son (age 28). He drove a Lexus, spoke of artistic differences with Disney, and confessed that Quentin Tarantino, though a genius, was a real diva on-set. 'He said it was really hard being gay and Jewish in L.A.,' Cooper says."
I mean, really! Nobody thinks QT is a genius anymore.
Dubious lede of the day: "BOISE, Idaho - Hundreds of fans gathered in front of the historic Egyptian Theater to catch a glimpse of Matt Damon and producer Frank Marshall at a benefit screening of The Bourne Supremacy."
It was the biggest event in Boise since rabid fans of Ben Affleck and Avi Arad came out for the Daredevil premier.
Continue reading "Mr. Marshall's publicist just earned herself a bonus" »
Well, that three years just flew by.
I have a Talk of the Town piece in The New Yorker this week: The Pet Goat Approach. If you like it, come back and I'll tell you more.
OK, prime minister, technically, but you just know George Bush wishes he could get away with the stuff his man in Baghdad does.
Iyad Allawi, the new Prime Minister of Iraq, pulled a pistol and executed as many as six suspected insurgents at a Baghdad police station, just days before Washington handed control of the country to his interim government, according to two people who allege they witnessed the killings. They say the prisoners - handcuffed and blindfolded - were lined up against a wall in a courtyard adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western suburbs.
But, hey, at least Lynndie England was mocking their genitalia at the time.
Fear not, blog friends. The scarcity of posts over the last few days does not only mean that I've been wasting my time on actual paying work. I've also been doing a little straightening up here on Radosh.net.
Most noticably, I've rearranged the left-hand column. Moving the 'recent posts' list up higher made sense, since before you'd only see it after you'd already read all the posts themselves (hypothetically, I mean). But now that the pretty product pictures are lower on the page (more on that in a minute), the top is very text-heavy and a little off-putting, unless I make sure that the lead post always has a gratuitous photo (preferably one this gratuitous). Obviously what I need is some kind of logo to go at the top of that column. As a side benefit, that would also give my listings some sparkle on Kinja. Any ideas?
As for those products -- or shopportunities as I like to think of them -- I've finally admitted to myself that I'm too lazy to constantly (or ever) change them by hand in order to keep the list fresh, so I've switched to Amazon's EZ link system, where the image and everything is stored on their server and all I have to do is cut and paste some HTML. The only problem is that it's ugly. I'm working on making it less so, but at some point it is what it is. I've also re-named these listings "trust me on this," and I'll tell you why.
The Wall Street Journal today profiles New York Times ombudsman Dan Okrent. Here's the graf that caught my eye:
"One reporter encouraged colleagues to ask confrontational questions in a meeting between Mr. Okrent and business-section reporters. 'Sometimes you have to treat others like the Russians -- you have to demonstrate strength,' says the reporter, David Cay Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize winner. 'I'm just waiting for him to screw up,' Mr. Okrent retorts in an interview. He hastens to say the comment was a joke and that he will avoid tackling any issue concerning Mr. Johnston."
Wait a second -- David Johnston? Isn't that the guy who I caught in a screw-up just last week regarding the claim that Al Qaida is targetting the convention in New York "because President Bush is a Republican"?
Well, yes and no [Update: Or rather, no and no. David Johnston is not David Cay Johnston. See jump]. Okrent's response to me: "Good catch: David Johnston didn't write it this way, and it got muffed on the desk."
Believe me, I know how it feels to get muffed on the desk. I don't care where the blame lies, but I do hope the Times runs a correction just to prevent this non-factoid from entering the public record.
Update: We get results (despite a muff of our own). After the jump...
Continue reading "The Roland Emmerich movie is in turnaround" »
Asked what differentiates Mr. Edwards from Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Bush declared flatly, "Dick Cheney could be president."
If I were making an ad for MoveOn, I'd just repeat that soundbite for 30 seconds, distorting it each time to make it scarier and scarier, and end with a card saying, "What more reason do you need?"
Wonkette's reaction was also our first one:
"The NYDN peeks at Christopher Hitchens's Vanity Fair column and finds the Johnny Walker enthusiast looking on the bright side: 'That Bush did not surrender to the need for a colossal bourbon on Sept. 11 stands, I think to his credit.' Right. So let's go to the official Bush presidency scoreboard. Pros: Did not get stinking drunk on 9/11. Cons: Started a war that has yet to be proven necessary."
But then we read that quote again and stumbled over "I think." I think?! If there was ever a sentiment that really did not need a qualifier, isn't this it? Or is Hitchens just covering his ass, allowing himself wiggle room to continue blindly endorsing the Bush even if Michael Moore digs up footage of him drinking that bourbon.
There's a rumor going around that portions of Fahrenheit 9/11 were "censored" between the film's initial limited release and its wider release a few days later. I'm doubtful. Even if what this guy says is true regarding his first and second (and third) viewings, my guess is that any changes were last-minute tweaks for cinematic purposes by Moore himself, and not the result of any right-wing pressure -- but then, what else do you expect a Michael Moore fan to think? Anyway, here's the e-mail that's circulating. Let me know if you know anything about this, or if you also saw the version of the film this guy claims to.
Continue reading "Revealed: F911 was almost more heavy-handed!" »
Damn but the New York Post gave me a depressing five minutes between the time I saw this "exclusive" cover story on the newsstand and the time I got to Google News.
On the surface it looks like the biggest front page blooper since the Post called the wrong winner in the 2000 election, and this time I don't think the Supreme Court is going to come to its rescue.
But was it actually a mistake or was it intentional? Knee-jerk conspiracy theories:
1. They were just setting Kerry up to accuse him of flip-flopping. Update: someone else has this idea.
2. They're hoping their readers won't see the story anywhere else (not impossible) and will go to the polls thinking Kerry is running with the intolerable Gephardt -- though in that case, they should've gone with Hillary.
Update: 3. They intentionally created a "collectable" to sell extra copies for people to resell on eBay. (Actually proposed here, albeit stone age reference to something called "a flea market" instead of eBay.)
I just sent the following e-mail to New York Times Public Editor Dan Okrent. I'll let you know when I get a response. Notice how I use my polite voice when I'm not blogging.
Dear Dan,
Hello again. I have a concern regarding a statement in today's front page story, "Fears of Attack at Conventions Drive New Plans," by David Johnston.
Johnston writes, "New York is regarded as a higher risk than Boston by counterterrorism officials because President Bush is a Republican and because of consistent intelligence."
The claim that Al Qaida is particularly anti-Republican seems to jibe just a little to well with the foul canard suggested by John Ashcroft and others in the Bush administration that Al Qaida is pro-Democrat and, by extension, vice versa. I understand that Johnston is citing officials, but he does so in a way that makes the conclusion sound self-evident. It is not.
I could understand if he'd said New York is higher risk because of the symbolism of the city, or because George Bush is the president of the United States, but I have never seen any other reports that Al Qaida is targetting Republicans especially, or that it even cares about the American political process. If counterterrorism officials believe this, that would surely qualify as news, and Johnston should explain why, rather than just state it as if it's obvious -- does the "consistent intelligence" he mentions say "Osama hearts Kerry"?
If, as I suspect, the officials who said this offered it only as a theory, Johnston should raise the possibility that they are trying to score political points, and that the administration has a track record of doing this (cf, Ashcroft's 5/26 press conference).
I certainly hope that Johnston did not simply repeat this claim without even ascertaining what it is based on. If that's the case, he and the Times owe us an apology.
Best wishes,
Daniel
Having spent way too much time discussing Fahrenheit 9/11 before seeing it, I should probably say a few more things now that I have.
First and most importantly, I have to agree with Richard Roeper that everyone should see this film. It's certainly possible that someone who goes into it supporting Bush will come out still supporting him. But if you're going to pull that lever, it's your duty to do so with eyes wide open, and for all its problems, F9/11 is an eye-opener.
Continue reading "The temperature where blogs jump the shark" »
A Lindsay Lohan headline that is not really a double entendre but seems like it should be. Especially with that photo of her double entendres. Huzzah!
By the way, I happened to come across this photo of the starlet's vanity license plate. Rub it in, why doncha? Proving that I'm not half the pervert I pretend to be, I had no idea that as of today, the license plate is out of date.
Related: I recently Netflixed Freaky Friday. Pre-boobies, but totally worth a rental. Go figure!
