Liebling I shrunk the editorial staff…

Between 1945 and 1963, A.J. Liebling wrote for “The Wayward Press” column in the weekly New Yorker Magazine. And much of what his pointed criticism of journalistic entrepreneurism attacked is still valid today, or valid again…
“The function of the press in society is to inform, but its role is to make money. The monopoly publisher’s [...]

What is the problem with Michael Jackson?

10 years later, we still haven’t a clue, to be honest.

The greatest show on TV

HBOs “The Wire” is imho the best piece of american television produced in decades. Fot those already in the know here is a very in depth coverage of the whole series from a variety of angels by Darkmatter Journal.
For everybody else here is a taste:
Here two of the protagonists solve a murder, using only one [...]

Coffee-flavored coffee

Besides Starbucks apparent lack of a decent workplace, they have another major shortcoming. Considering they are supposed to serve coffee it is a bit funny how difficult it can be to actually get just that. Or as Dennis Leary said it below “Coffee-flavord Coffee”.

Bibi says…

“If Israelis can’t build homes in the West Bank
then Palestinians shouldn’t be allowed to either.”
- Benjamin Netanyahu
The EU wants to improve relations with Israel on condition that the latter take concrete steps toward facilitating a Palestinian state. Which, by nature, means that Israelis would eventually need to haul ass out of the occupied territory which [...]

The name of the beast is not 666

Some may have noticed the tag I applied to the economics posts lately. I labeled those as “econopocalyshit” and thought myself very clever. Looks like a bunch of other people have been equally or even more creative. Below is a list by Bruce Sterling culled from Twitter, I think. Enjoy:
Meltdown, Credit Crunch, Great Recession, Econolypse, [...]

Mister Amnesia

There’s a terrible disease out there which is predominantly found in politicians and other public figures. I’m not a doctor, but my diagnosis is that it’s a dangerously widespread case of instant nostalgia favoured by selective memory loss and a deep wish to be loved after all with which passing statesmen look back onto their [...]

Your land is our land…

Israel will Zahl der Siedler verdoppeln
73′000 neue Wohnungen im Westjordanland geplant.
Das israelische Wohnungsbauministerium will die Zahl der jüdischen Siedler im besetzten Westjordanland laut einem Radiobericht fast verdoppeln. Die Pläne sähen für die kommenden Jahre den Bau von 73′000 Wohnungen vor, 5700 davon im annektierten Ostteil Jerusalems.
[...]
«Die Umsetzung dieser Pläne würde die Schaffung eines palästinensischen Staates [...]

This Gaza mess…

The quote of this week comes from the freshly returned Daily Show.
Jon Stewart: Hamas’ continued insistence on firing rockets into Israel, and Israel’s continued insistence on the soul-crushing segmentation and blockading of Gaza is a very complex situation…
[Various media pundits compare the situation to  rockets being fired into the United states from either Tijuana, Cuba [...]