December 2011
87 posts
“The furniture—mostly wood antiques and comfortable, neutral colored sofas, gold...”
– In Napa, Kelly Fleming Blends House and Winery - WSJ.com
This means one of three things:
1) Kelly Fleming is finally trying to shed that annoying habit she had of replacing all her furniture every few years.
2) People in the Napa Valley often replace all their furniture every few years.
3) The...
“During a meeting in Madrid in March 2008, Hurd walked Fisher to an ATM and...”
– Hurd Pursued Sex With Contractor Jodie Fisher While CEO of HP, Letter Says - Bloomberg
This is possibly the most bathetic thing I’ve seen all year.
“The reason why Fox News feels so threatened by Jon Stewart is because his...”
– Jon Stewart Spanks Fox News in the Year-End Ratings
The average Fox News viewer is 65 years old???
Here’s a prediction: after Roger Ailes retires, Fox News will steadily decline in the ratings, and people will say it’s because of his absence. But in fact it’ll just be a...
For FY 2011, the Observer Media Group will post a... →
spiers:
Been dying to let that cat out of the bag for a while now.
But of course you needed to wait until after it finally appeared in print, halfway down a Keith Kelly column.
(And, I kid, but congrats, seriously.)
“Mr. Romney relishes meeting young voters and rarely misses an opportunity to...”
– A New Romney, Seeking to Connect, Reveals Some Quirks - NYTimes.com
I think the NYT needs to brush up on the meaning of the word “voter”
“One key player continues to support Argentina: China.
“China will continue to...”
– Univision News Tumblr: Argentina: Dispute over Falklands/Malvinas rises again
Annals of immovable objects, LACMA edition
NYT, October 7:
Mr. Govan raised his hand when asked, in an interview in his office last week, if the oft-delayed move would be put off again. “This is going,” he said. “It’s going. It has to come before the rainy season,” which begins in November. (Two days later the move was put off another week; it is now scheduled to begin the week of Oct. 17.)
LACMA, October 17:
The boulder is...
“Shapers are organized in a network of local hubs based in each major city around...”
– Global Shapers | World Economic Forum-Global Shapers
Ah, Davospeak. How I haven’t missed you.
“The local state of Chihuahua registered 1,250 complaints of torture, forced...”
– Special Report: Federal forces sully Mexico’s war on drugs | Reuters
“there’s an essay to be written about why any accusation of a racial...”
– Unendorsed - Ta-Nehisi Coates - Politics - The Atlantic
This is partly a function of the evolution of racial offenses, I think. The offense used to be “black people are inferior to white people”; now, it’s “black people are the same as white people”.
Does the NYT for iPad have front-page conventions?
We’re reading the NYT on iPads this week, and Michelle had a good question: in the NYT app, how is the front page laid out? We’re familiar with the front-page conventions of the print newspaper, and especially the idea that the most important story in the world is the one in the top-right corner. Are there similar conventions for the iPad front page? Is there a similar way, on the...
“A new study examining self-regulation reveals that thinking about god does help...”
– How the Concept of “God” Influences Goal Pursuit (via alea)
Impact Factor Predicts Unreliability Of Research... →
alea:
“…we’ve already seen that the most prominent way of ranking scholarly journals, Thomson Reuters’ Impact Factor (IF), isn’t a very good measure for predicting how many citations your scientific paper will attract. Instead, there is evidence that IF is much better at predicting the chance that your paper might get retracted.”
“It wouldn’t be Christmas without a plate heaped high with holiday treats —...”
– Occupy Wall Street Protesters Spend Christmas in Zuccotti Park - DNAinfo.com
“When you get aboard an aircraft, most of us don’t have a say on who we sit next to. But that doesn’t doom you to catching the flu,” said Mark Gendreau of Boston’s Lahey Clinic Medical Center. In 2005, he was part of a team that published a paper in the Lancet that concluded the perceived risk for travelers was higher than the actual risk, and that’s still...
“I’d always assumed that Americans used to have accents similar to today’s...”
– Nick Patrick: Did Americans in 1776 have British accents?
(via dminkin)
“Since I wrote a column last month asking why these rules exist, I’ve spoken with...”
– Tests Cast Doubt on F.A.A. Restrictions on Kindle and iPad - NYTimes.com
“We’re on I-95, and she unhooks the pole, and she’s holding the morphine bag over...”
– The Lives They Lived - Interactive Feature - NYTimes.com
Go read this, it’s wonderful.
Some Idiot Purchased Groupon's $25,000 Todd...
baddeal:
We’re not going to criticize this offer point-by-point. As we’ve said in the past, most Todd English deals are axiomatically BAD DEALS because they involve having to eat at Todd English restaurants. What we are going to do is express bewilderment that someone actually purchased this deal. That fact alone proves that deal critics (like this one) aren’t doing a good enough job educating...
“A reindeer that strays from your lawn to mine is a nuisance at any time of year.”
– Christopher Hitchens on Forced Merriment, the True Spirit of Christmas - WSJ.com
No one does curmudgeonly quite like the Hitch. Plus, bonus usage of the word “freshet”! When was the last time you saw that one in print?
“In October, tensions arose over a fund-raising dinner held by the Empire State...”
– For Cuomo and Bloomberg, the Friction Doesn’t Let Up - NYTimes.com
Gay-rights datapoint of the day: New York now has a governor and a mayor who literally bicker over which one is more gay-friendly.
“According to reports, before falling from the window the young woman was having...”
– IKN: Moral: Don’t get thrown out of windows by married men when their wives come home unexpectedly
I won't let you eat lunch until you agree to new...
According to several participants, the debate frequently became emotional, and it looked as if the meeting could break up without reaching an agreement, leaving the global financial system as vulnerable as before.
Mr. Trichet reminded the participants that it was up to them to prevent another financial crisis. The Western democracies, he warned darkly, could not survive another.
And he...
“Robinson is walking away with just under $15 million exclusive of the value of...”
– Robinson exit to cost New York Times over $15 million | Reuters
Something makes me suspect those options aren’t going to be worth a huge amount.
“We coined this investigation ‘Perfect Hedge’ because if you’re armed with that...”
– FBI Pulls Off ‘Perfect Hedge’ to Nab New Insider Trading Class - Bloomberg
This is why FBI agents shouldn’t ever give on-the-record interviews. They sound like complete and utter idiots.
“For the first century of America’s existence, the federal government’s presence...”
– Economics focus: One nation overdrawn | The Economist
“The International Union of Elevator Constructors has been pushing for the...”
– Elevator That Killed Y&R Executive Was Undergoing Maintenance, City Says - NYTimes.com
Wonder what Matt Yglesias thinks about this.
“The older order changeth, yielding place to new. God fulfills himself in many...”
– Withnail & I (1987) - Memorable quotes
“Winston Churchill put it very squarely when he defined the issue as,...”
– Living Proof | Culture | Vanity Fair
“I can recall a lunch in 1991, when I was editing The New York Observer, and he...”
– Graydon Carter Remembers Christopher Hitchens | Culture | Vanity Fair
“Here’s what I learned from Christopher Hitchens in the 25 years I knew...”
– Christopher Hitchens’ death: His generosity to young people was amazing. - Slate Magazine
@jacobwe nails Hitch’s awe-inspiring integrity
“The option of a smaller and less imperfect eurozone is becoming the only way to...”
– Downward Spiral - By Mohamed El-Erian | Foreign Policy
“Rich Broome, a Hertz spokesman, acknowledged that disclosure of all the taxes...”
– Car-rental fees need more disclosure - latimes.com
The things that flacks are forced to say with a straight face, part 913 