I don’t really have an official position on whether or not Knox killed whomever it is she supposedly killed in some ill-defined drug-fueled sexcapade, but I have inadvertently become aware that Nancy Grace considers her release a miscarriage of justice, which — based upon only the most cursory review of other coverage — seems to be something of a contrarian position.

This makes me more or less certain that cutting Knox loose was precisely the right thing to do, regardless of whether or not she killed anybody, based on my theory that anything that makes this bleating harpy unhappy is, by and large, good for humanity.

Sure, it’s part of his endorsement deal with Head & Shoulders, but this clip of Troy surprising people at Madam Tussaud’s is pretty delightful.

Rick Perry has never made more sense.

H/T to Rob.

You should go read what he has to say about seeing Will Smith’s house.

…she go and does this.

Murdoch has his US media outlets whitewashing his UK outlets’ misbehavior.

Cosmo’s covers are the stuff of self-parody already, so imagine my surprise at finding an actual funny parody cover.

Via Rob, we get Awesome People Hanging Out Together.

Don’t believe me? Well, try this one. And then there’s this one.

Michelle Obama invited a number of poets, including rapper Common, to the White House. Cue Fox outrage about some “gangster rapper” in favor of “killing cops,” complete with extraordinarily selective readings of his work to support their pathetic attempts to stoke white, right-wing outrage.

Jon Stewart’s on it; just go check it out.

You can’t make this stuff up.

Perhaps you’ve recently seen Ivanka the petite lap giraffe on the recent DirecTV commercials. You may be unaware, however, of her breeder, Sokoblovsky Farms, Russia’s finest purveyors of Petite Lap Giraffes. Enjoy.

(We Heathen are on the waiting list. Number 879,450, to be precise.)

HST interviews KEEF, and it’s appropriately odd. From 1993.

During the 1970s, sometimes Steve Martin would guest-host for Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show.

Burt Reynolds, at nearly the height of his fame, stopped by for a memorable chat about wildness, craziness, and mustaches. Go watch.

Pricing Should Be Simple.

Basically, if I ask “how much does it cost?” and you can’t tell me in less than a few words, I’m thinking you’re probably trying to fuck me.

“Conde Nast Launches ‘The New Yorker for Black People’.”

The Onion, of course.

So the jackasses on the right have another pelt on their wall this week, thanks to NPR showing their belly like giant pussies. Jon Stewart nailed this last time, ink the dustup about Juan Williams: they keep bringing tote bags to knife fights.

Where are my two-fisted liberals, dammit? Is Rahm the only one made in LBJ’s image?

Check out their post-Mubarak headline.

The Gawker network has adopted a new design that, more or less, genuflects towards TV as its guide instead of the random-access, user-driven way the web has worked before. It’s more about video and “appointment programming,” at least as they explain it. Oh boy!

Denton explains why you’ll probably stop reading his sites now. Of course, he doesn’t actually think that’s going to happen, but in the last week I’ve dropped 3 from my own personal rotation because of the shakeup. Your mileage may vary, of course.

Via MediaMatters:

If you follow the link, you are taken to a page on Fox Nation that claims Obama “misquoted a familiar Bible verse” during his address yesterday:

President Obama misquoted a familiar Bible verse during a faith-based address at the National Prayer Breakfast.

“Those who wait on the Lord will soar on wings like eagles, and they will run and not be weary, and they will walk and not faint,” the president said during a speech to several thousand people at the breakfast.

But the actual passage, from Isaiah 40:31, states: “But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

Somewhat ironically, while Fox Nation appears to be positioning themselves as the arbiters of authentic Christianity, they seem unfamiliar with the fact that there is more than one version of the Bible.

Obama was quoting from the New International Version, while Fox Nation was pointing to the King James Version to “debunk” him.

This would be funny if it weren’t so pathetic.

Just go watch.

Herein Rachel Maddow explains how we got to a place where lies and rumors are treated as fact in the self-confirming world of the well-funded right-wing media.

It’s not just the fringe accepting bullshit like “Muslims are exempt from Obamacare” or “Obama is smuggling muslims into the country” or “the Presidential trip to Asia costs $200 million a day.” Actual elected officials are encouraging and spreading these things that are easily disprovable, and that they know to be incorrect, because it’s politically useful. Facts have no place on the right.

Jimmy McMillan and his (ersatz) son for the Charlie Sheen Is Too Damn High Party.

Are you completely shitting me? Really?

So, anybody know who this is?

Here’s a hint: He’s tangentially related to this guy.

Anything is possible when you smell like a monster and know the word ‘on’..

The subtitle of this piece is “down the ladder from Playboy to Maxim,” and that about sums it up. Consider that, once upon a time, the best markets for fiction in the US were the “big four” magazines: The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Esquire, and — yes — Playboy. Hef’s mag ran stories by Steinbeck, Vonnegut, Hemingway, Styron, Nabokov, Cheever, and others.

Imagine that in FHM. Hell, imagine anything longer than 200 words in one of those lad mags.

Seriously. Watch this and tell me he’s not awesome. I dare you..

I have, for many, many years, been a happy New Yorker subscriber. Their brand of long-form, intelligent written articles is increasingly rare in the American publishing landscape. Every other magazine seems content to give us a page or two, but the New Yorker will commission and print articles that sometimes require more than one sitting, and that’s just fantastic (The Atlantic and Harper’s still do this, too, but beyond them I’m at a loss for another US publication that does).

The New Yorker, too, has done some pretty interesting things digitally, at least up to now. They offered their entire archive on CD and DVD, and then on a hard drive, and finally online; in none of these cases was the product poorly-scanned and haphazardly OCR’d text — instead, the New Yorker provided full-page scans of entire issues, complete with vintage ads, all the way back to the beginning of time.

It’s a wonderful thing, I tell you.

What I’ve been waiting for, though, has been a real digital companion for my New Yorker subscription. I travel quite frequently, and always end up with 2 or 3 issues in my bag — maybe I’m partway through a long Sy Hersh piece in one issue, and want to catch up on the fiction from another, or whatever. The New Yorker is a weekly, too, so issue proliferation is a problem around the house — you don’t want to accidentally discard an issue without being sure you’ve read all you want to read!

I had high hopes for the New Yorker when I first heard that publications would be available on the Kindle, but those hopes were quickly dashed. Some numbskull at Conde Nast decreed that (a) the full text wouldn’t be available on Amazon’s device; and (b) no pictures would be present at all; and (c) the cost would be greater than a print subscription. Add to this the fact that a walled-garden digital subscription is by definition a rental — Amazon can zap your back issues at any time! — that you can’t share (no more “hey, read this!”), and it starts to look like a very bad deal indeed.

Today, the net is abuzz with the introduction of the New Yorker iPad app, which at first blush comes much closer to the mark. Appaarently, each new issue will have an iPad edition, complete with full text, all the pictures, all the cartoons, and the whole nine yards. That’s a great idea. What ruins it, and with it the New Yorker’s digital strategy, is that apparently the same numbskull is still handling pricing: Each iPad issue is $5, still contains a boatload of ads, and there is no provision for discounting or bundling for existing print subscribers. (Who, I note, retain access to the clunky web experience mentioned above for the whole of the archive.)

The New Yorker is a great magazine, but I can’t imagine buying even a great magazine TWICE. This is what the music industry wanted us to do (pay multiple times to play a song at home, on our iPods, in our cars, as ringtones), and it’s what the book-and-magazine industry would like to dupe us into.

I say bollocks. For now, if I want to carry back issues with me in digital form, I guess I’ll be printing a whole bunch of PDFs, because FUCK this iPad pricing model.

I’m immortalizing this below, in case the New York Review Of Books ever takes it down:

In response to Words from the July 15, 2010 issue

To the Editors:

It is truly discouraging to see, in a column by Tony Judt about sensitivity to language, “inchoate” used as a synonym for “chaotic” [“Words,” NYR, July 15]. Although this solecism is quite common, it still pains the ears of those few of us who are sensitive to the etymological resonances of English words. Didn’t Professor Judt learn Latin at the fancy school he went to?

“We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”—Tom Paine

Sam Abrams
Rochester, New York

Before his death on August 6, Tony Judt replied as follows:

Like most people of your kind, you assume too much: regarding both what I wrote and what you are qualified to infer. “Inchoate” means: “Just begun, incipient; in an initial or early stage; hence elementary, imperfect, undeveloped, immature” (OED). And that is just what I meant — the words begin to form but do not complete. If I had meant to say that they were “chaotic” I would have said so.

At the “fancy school” I attended (my education cost precisely nothing from the age of five to twenty-four: what about yours?) I was taught Latin, but also how to distinguish between knowledge and pedantry. I am glad to say that forty years later I can still smell the difference at fifty yards.

James Mason says Thunderbird Wine has an unusual flavor.

This seems just about right to me:

I’ve never met [JJ Abrams]. I am not a member of his fan club or anti-fan club. I disliked Cloverfield a very great deal. I disliked Star Trek intensely. I thought it was terrible. And I think part of my problem is that I feel like the relationship between JJ Abrams’ projects and geek culture is one of relatively unloving repackaging – sort of cynical. I taste contempt in the air. Now I’m not a child – I know that all big scifi projects are suffused with the contempt of big money for its own target audience. But there’s something about [JJ’s projects] that makes me particularly uncomfortable. As compared to somebody like Joss Whedon, who – even when there are misfires – I feel likes me and loves me and is on some cultural level my brother and comrade. And I don’t feel that way about JJ Abrams.

Gruber explains how Tynt is the new blight on the web, and how to make it go away.

It’s funny because it’s true:

Over at Kotaku.

You’re a spammer. Stop it. I’m looking at you Mobile Storm, but also pretty much any other firm that sends mail to a list provided by other people.

Longtime Heathen Chris Mohney has produced what may be the definitive piece of criticism about the shock-horror film The Human Centipede. Don’t miss this. (SFW.)

They just want your data, and they’ll use it any way they like. Gizmodo has ten reasons you should quit now.

The New York Times profiles David and Barbara Mikkelson, perhaps better known to you as the couple behind the granddaddy of all rumor and gossip debunking sites, Snopes.com.

Fox has got Sarah Palin tied to some interview show, but they’re using interviews conducted quite some time ago by people other than Palin as filler. Douchey, right? It gets better: it turns out some of those interviewees aren’t too keen on being associated with Palin. One of the folks they picked was LL Cool J, who took exception to his association with the rightwingnut on Twitter:

Fox lifted an old interview I gave in 2008 to someone else & are misrepresenting to the public in order to promote Sarah Palins Show. WOW

Fox responded with predictable maturity:

Real American Stories features uplifting tales about overcoming adversity and we believe Mr. Smith’s interview fit that criteria. However, as it appears that Mr. Smith does not want to be associated with a program that could serve as an inspiration to others, we are cutting his interview from the special and wish him the best with his fledgling acting career.

Note their absolute insistence on missing the point (LL doesn’t want to be associated with Palin, or with an enterprise that makes money for Palin); they instead suggest he’s somehow anti-hero. But the best part is their persistent usage of “Mr. Smith” (LL’s actual name is Jason Todd Smith), and their junior-high mean-girls-bitchy crack about his “fledgling” acting career. News flash, Fox: LL started acting before you existed; his first credit is from 1986. But we know how hard it is for Fox News to do something as basic as check facts, so knock yourself out.

Now it appears that Toby Keith is also not happy about his inclusion. DeLIGHTful.

Not just the Oscar. Also The Funny.

(Sidenote: It’s astonishing how quickly web memes find their way into mainstream TV comedy now.)

Nation Shudders At Large Block Of Uninterrupted Text:

WASHINGTON—Unable to rest their eyes on a colorful photograph or boldface heading that could be easily skimmed and forgotten about, Americans collectively recoiled Monday when confronted with a solid block of uninterrupted text.

Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words.

“Why won’t it just tell me what it’s about?” said Boston resident Charlyne Thomson, who was bombarded with the overwhelming mass of black text late Monday afternoon. “There are no bullet points, no highlighted parts. I’ve looked everywhere—there’s nothing here but words.”

Go read all of it.

Check it out:

You a big fan of aggressive IP enforcement? Like to think a well-litigated market is a healthy market? Hate those little entrepreneurial nuisances like “competition from emerging media?”

Well, then, you would have loved the early 20th century.

Because you had to get Thomas Edison’s permission to make any movie. Then you had to pay him.

Read the whole thing.

On the March 4 show, The Daily Show did a really, really stellar segment on Chatroulette. Do NOT miss this; starts at about 8:00 in.

Paul Graham’s Why TV Lost sums up quite a bit that I’ve been talking about for years. Incumbent media have been caught flat-footed by the Internet for ten years, and they’re not getting any better at adapting because they still think of it as something they can compete with rather than capitalize on.

Murdoch has more or less destroyed what was once a great paper.

Apparently, greenscreening is way, way, way more common than you think.

Juggalo News Network should not be missed.

(Context here.)

Here’s a surprise: everything in the ad is real (or, at least, physical) with the exception of the diamonds/magically-appearing bottle. Yes, even the horse.

Oh, and the dude? Former NFL receiver Isaiah Mustafa.

THE MAN YOUR MAN COULD SMELL LIKE.

The Beast has its 50 Most Loathsome People of 2009 up; can there be any doubt who has earned the top spot?

1. Glenn Beck

Charges: As the Sybil of cable punditry and graduate of the prestigious University of I Don’t Remember, Beck’s bipolar professor routine is hands down the funniest thing on TV. When he gets out the chalkboard and starts drawing trees and playing misspelled word association games with a comically grave demeanor, Beck makes Stephen Colbert look like a piker. The fact that millions of Americans think he knows what he’s talking about, however, is not funny at all. If this simpering boob, blubbering the same old reds-under-the-bed melodrama from the ‘50s with a sophomoric Da Vinci Code twist, is the face of the people’s rebellion, sign us up for the empire.

Exhibit A: “This president has exposed himself as a guy, over and over and over again, who has a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture… I’m not saying that he doesn’t like white people.”

Sentence: Drowned in crocodile tears; eaten by crocodile.

In addition to her output as both a solo artist and as part of the Dresden Dolls, and also in addition to her choice of companion, there is much to love about Amanda Fucking Palmer.

Click through to Palmer’s own review of the event as well, which provides context for some of the shots reproduced on Fug and elsewhere.

My favorite part: Neil’s own summary:

2) I went to the Golden Globes for Coraline. We lost. But we lost to Up! so no surprise there. Amanda, who was with me, wore a classic 1920s beaded dress with very little underneath it, and nobody noticed me at all. The Golden Globes were interesting. The strangest moment was as we were leaving the NBC party, the photographers grumbled that they hadn’t got any photos of us going in, so we agreed to pose for them… and when they complained that Amanda was no longer wearing the amazing beaded dress she’d worn on the Red Carpet, she changed back into it for them (with me holding up a jacket as a makeshift changing area — the area was deserted but for photographers). They took photographs. (When shot with a flash the dress looks a lot more naked than it did when I was standing next to her.) My favourite bit was that when the photos appeared Amanda was named and I was listed as “and guest”.