Bruce Schneier points us to Woodward’s piece on how he and Felt avoided detection. Felt had some, shall we say, professional insight into the matter.

The entire 80 year archive of the New Yorker will be available on DVD this fall, according to the New York Times today:

The New Yorker, the weekly magazine that started as “a hectic book of gossip, cartoons and facetiae,” as Louis Menand once wrote, and has evolved into a citadel of narrative nonfiction and investigative reporting, will publish its entire 80-year archives on searchable computer discs this fall. The collection, titled “The Complete New Yorker,” will consist of eight DVD’s containing high-resolution digital images of every page of the 4,109 issues of the magazine from February 1925 through the 80th anniversary issue, published last February. Included on the discs will be “every cover, every piece of writing, every drawing, listing, newsbreak, poem and advertisement,” David Remnick, editor of the magazine, has written in an introduction to the collection. […] The project is an amalgam of technology, stealth, insurance considerations and economics that was first discussed more than seven years ago. It was overseen, and long kept secret, by Edward Klaris, general counsel for the magazine, and Pamela Maffei McCarthy, its deputy editor. In early 2004, two staff members drove two copies of each issue of the magazine to Kansas City in a rented truck to have them digitally scanned. The magazine’s card catalog, which over time has come to include more than 1.5 million index cards containing citations and cross-references to articles and which forms the backbone of the search function on the discs, was scanned at the magazine’s office in Manhattan after discussions with the publication’s insurance company found the catalog to be “irreplaceable and beyond value,” Mr. Remnick said. The collection also has one other important feature, which allows a reader to page through each magazine by flipping directly to the cartoons. As Mr. Remnick admits, “Ninety percent of our subscribers say they read the cartoons first, and the rest would be lying.”

Now, if they’ll just commit to digital updates every year…

Intel is embedding support for Microsoft’s Digital Rights Management in its upcoming Pentium D line. Even more reason to eschew Windows!

This is astoundingly rich. At a recent forum in re: the proposed resurrected broadcast flag, Mike Godwin of Public Knowledge pointed out the main objections to the scheme (quote from Prof. Ed Felton’s Freedom to Tinker, which in turn is quoting a story from National Journal Tech Daily by Sara Lai Stirland):

Godwin said any regulations concerning digital television copy-protection schemes would necessarily have to affect any devices that hook up to digital television receivers. That technical fact could have far-reaching implications, such as making gadgets incompatible with each other and crimping technology companies’ ability to innovate, he said. “I don’t want to be the legislator or the legislative staff person in charge of shutting off connectivity and compatibility for consumers, and I don’t think you want to do that either,” he told a roomful of technology policy lobbyists and congressional staffers. “It’s going to make consumers’ lives hell.” Godwin’s talk drew a sharp protest from audience member Rick Lane, vice president of government affairs at News Corp. “Compatibility is not a goal [emph. added],” he said, pointing out that there are currently a plethora of consumer electronics and entertainment products that are not interoperable. Lane was seconded by NBC Universal’s Senior Counsel for Government Relations Alec French, who also was in the audience.

Felton continues:

To consumers, compatibility is a goal. When devices don’t work together, that is a problem to be solved, not [a] mandate [for] even more incompatibility. [Slightly edited to fix what appear to be typos in Felton’s text.] The FCC and Congress had better be careful in handling the digital TV issue, or they’ll be blamed for breaking the U.S. television system. Mandating incompatibility, via the Broadcast Flag, will not be a popular policy, especially at a time when Congress is talking about shutting off analog TV broadcasts. The most dangerous place in Washington is between Americans and their televisions.

More coverage at TechDirt and Engadget.

Update: Mr. Godwin has posted his own entry as well.

An appeals court in Minnesota has ruled that simply having encryption software installed on one’s computer can be viewed as evidence of criminal intent.

In making his decision, Judge R. A. Randall:

[…]favorably cited testimony given by retired police officer Brooke Schaub, who prepared a computer forensics report–called an EnCase Report–for the prosecution. Schaub testified that PGP “can basically encrypt any file” and “other than the National Security Agency,” nobody could break it.

Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. Properly implemented public-key cryptography (with sufficiently large keys) is essentially unbreakable, even by the NSA. But it’s also a cornerstone of Internet commerce, and — since it’s so effective — is now commonly used to secure sensitive documents and emails in everyday life, even for users who are unaware of its role.

Extending this logic, we may presume that sealed envelopes suggest conspiracy, since people with nothing to hide would just use postcards, right? Leaving aside the utterly boneheaded implications along those lines, this also makes just about every computer out there evidence of criminal intent — Windows, if we’re not mistaken, can make encrypted ZIP files, and OS X includes a FileVault drive-encrypting feature. Both, presumably, include methods for initiating public-key secured network connections — otherwise, every credit card you type on the net would be sent in plaintext. Go Minnesota!

Pay attention. Newsweek is now retracting a story that was apparently true (even the former Army chaplain said so in 2002 — and he was quoting the camp’s head honcho), and they’ve done it not because of riots in Afghanistan, but because the White House asked them to, which is so astoundingly inappropriate as to boggle the mind. As Josh points out, this means the Administation has effectively domesticated both Newsweek and CBS at this point. With Fox already firmly in their pocket and PBS in their sights, they’re well on their way to neutering the press.

As Bill Moyers said, a democracy can die of too many lies. Or, as Rude Pundit puts it: “This is a blood game, and, motherfuckers, if you’re not doing the cutting, you’re the ones bleeding to death.”

Atrios pointed out this editorial from Molly Bingham, who spent much of last year trying to figure out exactly who the resistance is in Iraq. Where are they from? What do they want? Why do they fight? Looking into that issue forces examination of more than just the resistance, and it’s those realizations that create the insights in the editorial. Just read it.

Down on your recruiting numbers? Just tell your recruiting target that they have to enlist or you’ll have them arrested!

David Sirota on the growing failure of American journalism.

Fred explains the whole East Waynesville thing, and in so doing reveals why, if pressed, we still cop to being “Baptist.” (Hint: the SBC isn’t really Baptist anymore.)

Editors say they forbid undercover operations:

“It is important that sources be aware that they are dealing with journalists,” said Tim Franklin, editor of The Sun in Baltimore. “It is not something that I feel comfortable with. This is a form of undercover journalism that, thankfully, went out of vogue in the early 1980’s.”

Presumably, the “early 1980s” represent some sort of ancient period in journalism wherein it didn’t almost universally suck.

The famed security expert explains why REAL ID is a complete waste of time. Of course, it’s also almost certain to become law.

There is a story about this — Google stumbled — but mostly we just wanted to use the headline.

JWZ points out this little gem of a headline: Chlamydia Outbreak Kills a Dozen Penguins.

There’s a joke here about retired, pedophile priests finding work in animal husbandry, but we’re not touching it.

So to speak.

Some high school teachers are still assholes.

The so-called “Broadcast Flag” has been struck down by a 3-0 decision. BoingBoing, Wired News and Godwin’s Law (yes, that Godwin) have more.

Atrios points out that Stephen Colbert is getting his own show, which will run after TDS.

From our hometown paper: Rick James on the issues.

From here:

Media On the Run:
Sweet merciful motherfucker, the Rude Pundit is so fuckin’ glad that there’s no more war in Iraq and the soldiers have returned home, the Social Security debate is over, the terrorists are on the run, Tom DeLay’s crawlin’ under a porch lookin’ for termites, the public education system’s been fixed, North Korea’s handed over all its nuclear technology and opened itself up to inspections, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are tryin’ to figure out who’s gonna be the top in their shared prison cell (the smart money’s on Cheney), and more, more, so much more, so that we could waste, waste, fuckin’ waste hours upon hours of television news time on a crazy goddamned bug-eyed bride-not-to-be who lied about being kidnapped. Because otherwise, it’d be pretty fuckin’ stupid, wouldn’t it? This time it’s worse – it’s worse than Michael Jackson, Laci Peterson, Robert Blake, and Chandra Levy because it ain’t about jack motherfuckin’ shit, not even a crime, not even a celebrity, not even a politician – it’s about the committing of a misdemeanor by an idiot in order to fool other idiots, but its massive, overwhelming coverage only reveals who the real idiots are. At one point, Sunday morning, all three “news” networks were doing long pieces on who-the-fuck-cares-what-her-name-is, interviewing “experts” about why someone wouldn’t want to get married, why would someone claim they were kidnapped and, no, really, truly, who the fuck cares. Do you think Wolf Blitzer can look at himself in the mirror anymore? Do you think he wants to hock a loogie at his own reflection because he knows, he fuckin’ knows that that’s what he deserves from the rest of us? Do you think he knows how much harm he does or does the bell ring and he just obeys?

Achtung!

You thought the Ralph Reed bullshit was significant? Try this bit on for size, where Chairman Bill outright lies to NPR about Redmond’s flip-flop on the Washington gay rights initiative. Fuckers.

That’s the title of Al Gore’s piece in Salon (from a speech on Wednesday). It should be required reading for all those who think the “nuclear option” — as the GOP termed eliminating judicial filibusters — is a good idea. Hell, everybody ought to read it.

In our experience, John Gruber over at DaringFireball is occasionally too much a Mac partisan to be taken seriously, but more often than not he’s spot on. This time, though, he completely nails just exactly what is fucked up about the Adobe-Macromedia merger: it’s more evidence that the sales guys have taken over. Simply put, this invariably means more marketing bullshit and less technical excellence, or as he puts it:

Now that it’s run by a sales guy [Bruce Chizen, who took over from the founders], it has turned into a company that seems more interested in the sales and marketing of its products than in the products themselves.

Word. Gruber concludes with:

Like most sales guys, Chizen seems like the sort of person who believes that what matters most is not the quality of the product itself, but merely the marketing in which you package it. Marketing does matter, and so does salesmanship. But the main reason Adobe Systems has been a success is that they created and developed terrific, innovative software. Engineering talent isn’t enough; you need passion for innovative products at the top of a company. If that spirit continues to wither, Adobe will continue its slide into mediocrity, and will become just another software company. But if it becomes a bigger company while doing so, I suspect that will suit Bruce Chizen just fine.

Meanwhile, I suspect more and more folks will opt for the Gimp.

There now exist bras designed for unaugmented women to give the distinct impression to observers that they have in fact joined the silicon masses.

The Evolution bra is aimed at “women who lust after the look of cosmetic breast implants,” according to Brastraps Inc., a Florida-based company that introduced the new bra on Friday. The Evolution features a sculpted, graduated cup “specially designed to mimic the appearance of cosmetic breast implants.”

In other words, they produce ersatz fake breasts.

“Qatar to replace camel riders with robots.”

“Police in Ariz. Seek Monkey for SWAT Team“

(Thanks, Triple-F!)

A Cal State Chico fraternity has been suspended for allowing a porn film to be shot in their house during a party.

Classy move:

WASHINGTON, March 28 – The parents of Terri Schiavo have authorized a conservative direct-mailing firm to sell a list of their financial supporters, making it likely that thousands of strangers moved by her plight will receive a steady stream of solicitations from anti-abortion and conservative groups. New York Times, 3/29/05

NYT link; standard “we’re idiots who just don’t get it” disclaimer applies in re: their rotting links. Use nogators/nogators for access until then.

A rumpus afoot in Colorado; Kos has the scoop, and there’s also AP coverage.

So to emphasize — the White House uses taxpayer dollars to finance these propaganda events. THEN, in order to keep out anyone who might be critical, they “outsource” ticketing and security. That way they can label the events “private” and kick out anyone they want in violation of the First Amendment.

We were going to cover the latest news from Florida in all its ignorant fuckwit glory, but why bother when Fafblog does the job for us?

Freedom from Reality
Freedom is ever-marching, and its latest target for emancipation is none other than the Gulag Academia, where millions of students are held hostage by totalitarian educators whose cruel practice of teaching them things they don’t already believe could soon be put to an end. Florida Republicans are considering passing an “Academic Freedom Bill of Rights” which will give college students the power to sue “dictator professors” who offend their beliefs by teaching material which contradicts them. The Medium Lobster hails this as a measure long overdue. For far too long, higher education has been concerned with “education” and “instruction,” mere euphemisms for harsh indoctrination into the totalitarian ideology of Fact. But now students will be given the tools to fight back, to free themselves of their oppressive enslavement to a world in which life evolved over millions of years through natural selection, dinosaurs weren’t wiped out six thousand years ago by the flood of Noah, and the evil Xemu was not responsible for the existence of body thetans. Fafblog

Shockingly, AOL reacted to the hew and cry over its Instant Messaging terms of service (“you have no privacy, and we own all you say”) by actually changing their position.

You may or may not have heard by now that an Arizona teen has been convicted under an Arizona law prohibiting unauthorized copying of music. What’s wacky is how the RIAA figured the value of his “crime,” as Techdirt explains:

Yesterday, in discussing the odd case of a teen convicted under Arizona state laws for unauthorized copying, we wondered about some of the details — including the $50 million claim pinned to the material on his hard drive in early versions of the AP story (later removed, for no clear reason). Luckily, we’ve got some answers. Slate takes a look at the $50 million and explains how the content industry does math to come up with such figures. The real answer is they basically make it up. They determine that each work can be valued somewhere between $750 and $30,000, even if they can all be downloaded legally for $1 a piece. It certainly seems a bit presumptuous to put such a high number on the value. However, this story gets even better. Ernest Miller takes a crack at the specific Arizona state law that tripped up this guy, and realizes it turns fair use copying into a felony. That’s right. The details show that if you’re simply ripping your own legally purchased CDs into MP3s for personal use or backup, you are breaking this particular law, and could reach the felony stage with as little as 1,000 songs — even though fair use copying is legal. Of course, at $30,000 per song, that’s only $30 million. To get up to $50 million, you’d need to rip 1,667 songs. If we assume an average album has… say… 12 songs, you’d just need to rip approximately 140 CDs to reach the $50 million felon mark. Not so hard. You might already be there. So, while it appears this particular kid was doing much more, you too could be convicted of a felony for having $50 million worth of content on your hard drive just for legally (oh, wait, maybe not…) ripping a bunch of your legally purchased CDs into MP3s.

The Onion has a no-story headline memorializing Thompson:

Contemporaries Remember Hunter S. Thompson As Ravenous, Mutant 40-Eyed Lizard-Demon

You’re goddamn right. You’re goddamn right.

Remember the 9/11 Guy photoshopped onto the WTC’s observation deck with an airliner looming in the background? Well, it turns out there’s a real world version from the tsunami. John and Jackie Knill were on the beach when the waves started getting weird. They started taking pictures of the waves, which get pretty hairy before, presumably, they quit and tried to find shelter. They didn’t make it, but the memory card from their camera did.

The Feds have decided that there’s no reason to encrypt the information stored in the RFID chips to be embedded in new passports. Here’s a hint: If Bruce Schneier says you’re screwing up on security, maybe you oughta reconsider your path. Wired quotes Schneier:

Bruce Schneier, a security expert and author who founded Counterpane Internet Security, questions how much shielding helps, since travelers often have to show identification to exchange currency or check into a hotel. “Shielding is a good idea, but the problem is if you travel in Europe you are asked to show your passport a lot,” Schneier said. “So all that shielding means is that someone who wants to sniff my passport just has to pick his location.” Schneier, who just renewed his passport to make sure he will not have an unencrypted passport for another 10 years, says he has yet to hear a good argument as to why the government is requiring remotely readable chips instead of a contact chip — which could hold the same information but would not be skimmable. “A contact chip would be so much safer,” Schneier said. “The only reason I can think of is the government wants surreptitious access. I’m running out of other explanations. I’d love to hear one.”

The former Chief Privacy Officer from Gator — a firm responsible for a nontrivial portion of the spyware epidemic Windows people suffer — has joined the Department of Homeland Security’s privacy advisory board.

You just can’t make this shit up.

From the New Orleans Times-Picayune, on Lindsay Lohan’s party habits in the Big Easy:

There you have it, folks. When Tara Reid says you’re partying too much, surely it’s time for some self-reflection.

Q: What do the following people have in common?

• Kobe Bryant
• Elizabeth Taylor
• Jay Leno
• Nick Carter
• Stevie Wonder
• Barry Gibb
• Diana Ross
• Chris Tucker
• Larry King
• Maury Povich
• Deepak Chopra

A: They are all on Michael Jackson’s defense witness list; it’s like a Love Boat/Fantasy Island episode gone horribly, horribly awry.

Presumably, each will testify that Michael never rogered ’em up the back door, not once, despite ample opportunity. (Except for Gibb, who will rant about growing up on the streets of Sydney, naturally (extra points if you get the ref (HDANCN?)).)

We may, of course, be certain of at least one question that will not be asked:

“Mr Wonder, did you see anything out of the ordinary at Mr Jackson’s ranch?”

I’m here all week, folks. Try the veal.

From the LA Times today:

WASHINGTON — The latest chapter in the legal history of torture is being written by American pilots who were beaten and abused by Iraqis during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. And it has taken a strange twist. The Bush administration is fighting the former prisoners of war in court, trying to prevent them from collecting nearly $1 billion from Iraq that a federal judge awarded them as compensation for their torture at the hands of Saddam Hussein’s regime. […] The case abounds with ironies. It pits the U.S. government squarely against its own war heroes and the Geneva Convention. Many of the pilots were tortured in the same Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, where American soldiers abused Iraqis 15 months ago. Those Iraqi victims, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, deserve compensation from the United States. But the American victims of Iraqi torturers are not entitled to similar payments from Iraq, the U.S. government says.

Richard Clarke’s January, 2001 memo to Condoleeza Rice on the threat posed by al Qaeda is now public. In it, he issued clear warnings about the group, and suggested strategies for dealing with them — and he asks for a meeting to review the threat and courses of action. Said meeting was delayed until September 4, 2001.

In 1990, thieves disguised as policemen staged a daring robbery of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Gardner’s will states that the museum must remain just as she left it, which is part of its charm — she mixed periods and styles as she saw fit, creating a unique presentation of art and antiquities. The museum cannot therefore rearrange the art, nor can they buy new works — let alone replace those stolen by parties unknown 15 years ago. Instead, there are blank spaces on the walls, filled only with white cards stating what had been there, and that the work in question had been stolen on March 18, 1990. Mrs-Heathen-To-Be and I visited the museum in November, and learned the story then.

Now it appears that the FBI is investigating former Vivendi head Jean-Marie Messier in connection with the robbery.

(via Metafilter)

The World Press Photo gallery from last year. Great stuff here.

Arthur Miller died Thursday night at his home in Roxbury. He was 89. Miller won the Pulitzer and a Tony for “Death of a Salesman” in 1949.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) sent ol’ George a letter on the subject wondering exactly why a guy with no journalism experience or credentials had a White House press pass under a pseudonym despite being employed only by a GOP mouthpiece, not a news organization. Other than to pitch softball questions to Scott, that is.

Well, there’s one more bit. “Gannon” has withdrawn to private life based on a bit of investigation by the blogosphere. It appears he didn’t care for some of his domain registrations being made public we guess.

Best. Lede. Evar.:

SALEM, South Dakota (AP) — The mix of nude dancers, orange juice and black-and-white independent films wasn’t in Bob Rieger’s original business plan.

The WaPo has a bit on the ongoing life of — and BOC appreciation of — the More Cowbell SNL sketch (4.5mb). Reproduced to stave off link rot:

Blue Oyster Cult, Playing Along With ‘More Cowbell’ By Paul Farhi
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, January 29, 2005; Page C01
There was something missing the other night when Blue Oyster Cult, the ’70s stadium rockers, kicked into their signature song, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper,” in a gig at the Rams Head Tavern in Annapolis. Fans of the band, and of “Saturday Night Live,” knew exactly what the song needed: More cowbell. Ever since April 2000, when “SNL” first broadcast a skit parodying “Reaper’s” recording session, the 29-year-old rock anthem has been inseparable from the humble cowbell. And perhaps from Christopher Walken’s portrayal of “legendary” record producer Bruce Dickinson, who repeatedly pleads in the skit for “more cowbell.” In fact, a kind of cult has sprung up around the Blue Oyster Cult bit and its two magic words. “More cowbell” appears on T-shirts, coffee mugs and buttons, and the spoof is still discussed and debated on Web sites across the Internet. It has become a stock witticism in clubs and bars as bands begin to play (indeed, one group in Upstate New York named itself More Cowbell). Snippets from the skit pop up regularly on the radio. When the cable entertainment channel E! named its 101 Most Unforgettable ‘SNL’ Moments last fall, “Cowbell” ranked among the top five. For those who’ve never seen it, the sketch’s hilarity probably defies a printed description (it’s best to see it for yourself at mknx.com/v/cowbell.wmv). Suffice to say, Will Ferrell, who wrote the skit, plays a band member named Gene Frenkle whose specialty is the cowbell (and whose shirt fails to cover his flopping gut). Walken, ever intense, is the producer who is determined — good taste and common sense notwithstanding — to get more cowbell into the song’s recording. He urges Frenkle to “really explore the studio space” while whaling away on his cowbell — which Ferrell does, in a breathtaking bit of physical comedy. Despite the obvious irritation of the rest of the band, Walken’s Dickinson persists. “Guess what?” he says between takes. “I got a FE-ver, and the only prescription . . . is more cowbell!” Walken, an actor who has specialized in portraying the slightly unhinged, has described the six-minute sketch as career-defining. “People . . . I don’t know . . . I hear about it everywhere I go,” he told the Orlando Sentinel in October. “It’s been years, and all anybody brings up is ‘cowbell.’ I guess . . . you never know what’s gonna click.” Among the more amused viewers of the bit are the actual members of Blue Oyster Cult. “We didn’t know it was coming,” says Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser, co-founder and lead guitarist of the group. “We all thought it was phenomenal. We’re huge Christopher Walken fans.” He adds, “I’ve probably seen it 20 times and I’m still not tired of it.” Roeser says the TV sketch accurately portrayed the look of the band in its mid-’70s heyday, but took some artistic license with a few details. For example, “SNL” player Chris Parnell, portraying the group’s lead singer, is referred to in the skit as “Eric.” That presumably would be a reference to longtime band member Eric Bloom, but it was actually Roeser, not Bloom, who was in front of the group when it made “Reaper.” And while there really is a record producer named Bruce Dickinson, he had nothing to do with the recording of the song. (Dickinson did work on some of the group’s later releases.) What’s more, the cowbell skit is presented as an episode of VH1’s “Behind the Music,” a real show that chronicles the lurid rise and fall of real-life bands. But Blue Oyster Cult never really was a “Behind the Music” kind of band. “We did our share of drugs, but we never really [expletive] up,” Roeser says. In fact, after a break in the mid-’80s and a few lineup changes, the group (featuring three of its members from the 1970s) has toured continuously, and plays about 80 to 90 dates a year. Roeser said people still ask the band about poor Gene Frenkle, whose image appears in a still frame at the end of the sketch with the words “In Memoriam. 1950-2000.” Roeser breaks into a laugh. “That’s a total fiction,” he says. “They made up that character.” Fact is, there is a cowbell on “Reaper.” If you listen closely to it on oldies radio, you can make it out in the background. But it was an afterthought. The song was recorded without it, and was added as an overdub at the last minute. According to former BOC bassist Joe Bouchard, an unnamed producer asked his brother, drummer Albert Bouchard, to play the cowbell after the fact. “Albert thought he was crazy,” Bouchard told the Asbury Park (N.J.) Press in 2000. “But he put all this tape around a cowbell and played it. It really pulled the track together.” During its show at the Rams Head on Thursday night, the five-member group dusted off its hits from three decades ago, including “R.U. Ready 2 Rock,” “Burnin’ for You” and “Godzilla.” Then, after a long guitar preamble, it snapped into its set-closer, “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” The familiar sweet notes swooped and soared, drawing the mostly middle-aged crowd back to its headbanging youth. Of course, it could have used . . . well, you know. © 2005 The Washington Post Company

Widely blogged but still cool: these pix of Tiger Woods shagging balls into the Gulf from atop Dubai’s tallest hotel.

(If the link rots, here’s the shots in order:

• Tiger1.jpg
• Tiger2.jpg
• Tiger3.jpg
• Tiger4.jpg
• Tiger5.jpg

If anyone knows the photo credit, I’ll happily run that, too.)

Mike points out something that ought to make everyone’s blood boil about how we’re treating our wounded troops.

There are several, but here’s the best one:

THINGS I’D PROBABLY SAY
IF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION WERE JUST
A WEEKLY TV SHOW AND I WERE
A REGULAR VIEWER.
By Eric Maierson “Now, see, you can’t just go and do something like that. That would be illegal.” “Boy, someone’s gonna get fired for that.” “Wasn’t that the one who made all the mistakes? Why is she getting promoted?” “Come on, in real life you’d never get away with something like that.” “They really expect us to believe that?” “Am I the only one confused here?” “Does this make any sense to you?” “Why is this still on?”

Or, at least, wherein we point you at someone else’s tribute. David Edelstein at Slate gets it right, and smacks down the McNews for their absurd reduction of Carson’s style and legacy:

Sometimes it’s easier to begin an appreciation by saying what a person emphatically was not. Consider this passage about Johnny Carson from an editorial in USA Today, which is wrongheaded on nearly every count:

But what made Carson so unusual wasn’t just his success, but how he achieved it. His monologues were not biting or cynical, as is often the case with today’s TV. His conversations with guests put the focus on the interviewee, not the interviewer. He didn’t win laughs at the expense of others, like Jay Leno does in his “Jaywalking” segment, which shows people unable to answer easy questions. If anyone was the butt of Carson’s humor, it was Carson himself.

You’d think that Carson was some sort of egoless saint of television, when at his peak he was precisely the oppositeÑwhich is why, of course, so many millions of us watched him so faithfully and took the news of his passing, at age 79 from emphysema, so hard.