Poll: 0 percent of blacks for Romney
Headline says it all. I’m cracking up here.
A daily miasma of frivolity by two wanna-be cultural critics. Or: just, like, some good links, dude.
Tag Archives: news
San Francisco Giants’ Melky Cabrera launched fake website in ruse, report says
San Francisco Giants’ Melky Cabrera launched fake website in ruse, report says
ESPN.com and the AP:
San Francisco Giants star outfielder Melky Cabrera mounted a campaign to avoid his 50-game suspension that included a fake website featuring a fictitious product in an effort that was quickly uncovered by MLB investigators, the New York Daily News has reported.
…
“There was a product they said caused this positive,” the source told the Daily News. “Baseball figured out the ruse pretty quickly.”
Why would you try this? Why would you even think this would work?
Traveller arrested smuggling live hummingbirds in his trousers
Traveller arrested smuggling live hummingbirds in his trousers
Wil Longbottom writing for the Daily Mail:
This Dutch traveller was caught trying to smuggle more than a dozen live hummingbirds in special pouches sewn into the inside of his underwear at Rochambeau airport in Cayenne, French Guiana.
The birds were individually wrapped in cloth and taped up to prevent them from ‘escaping’ from their sweaty travel container.
There are pictures. Whether you want them or not.
Whistleblower lawsuit alleges Florida Hospital filed millions in false claims
Whistleblower lawsuit alleges Florida Hospital filed millions in false claims
It is apparently not a good time to need health care in the state of Florida.
A few days ago, The New York Times reported that doctors at the HCA hospital chain had performed unnecessary heart procedures on patients whose problems weren’t severe enough to need them, resulting in several people nearly dying.
Now, Marni Jameson reports for the Orlando Sentinel about some shady accounting at the Florida Hospital branch in Orlando:
A whistle-blower lawsuit based on insider information from a former Florida Hospital Orlando billing employee and a staff physician alleges that seven Adventist Health hospitals in Central Florida have overbilled the federal government for tens of millions of dollars in false or padded medical claims.
The suit claims Florida Hospital used improper coding for more than a decade to overbill Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare, all federal government payors. In addition, it alleges, the hospital commonly overbilled for a drug used, for example, in MRI scans and billed for computer analyses that were never performed.
Nooooooot good.
US sees Israel, tight Mideast ally, as spy threat
US sees Israel, tight Mideast ally, as spy threat
Adam Goldman and Matt Apuzzo for the AP:
The CIA station chief opened the locked box containing the sensitive equipment he used from his home in Tel Aviv, Israel, to communicate with CIA headquarters in Virginia, only to find that someone had tampered with it. …
It was a not-so-subtle reminder that, even in a country friendly to the United States, the CIA was itself being watched.
… according to another two former U.S. officials, a CIA officer in Israel came home to find the food in the refrigerator had been rearranged.
How is this something that happens in real life and not a bad spy movie?
Jonah Lehrer’s Deceptions
Michael C. Moynihan, writing in Tablet:1
Last month, [Jonah] Lehrer was accused of a curious journalistic offense: the act of “self-plagiarism.” Lehrer, a staff writer at the New Yorker and celebrated author of three books, cannibalized his own work, posting often word-for-word excerpts from Imagine on the New Yorker’s blog without noting that it had been published elsewhere. To some, it was a tenuous charge—as one journalist commented to me, this was like “being accused of stealing food from your own refrigerator.” Others highlighted the pressures brought to bear on young writers to produce more and more content.
That’s just background. The real meat of the article is Moynihan tearing apart the chapter of Lehrer’s new book * Imagine: How Creativity Works* that discusses Bob Dylan’s creative process:
I’m something of the Dylan obsessive—piles of live bootlegs, outtakes, books—and I read the first chapter of Imagine with keen interest. But when I looked for sources to a handful of Dylan quotations offered by Lehrer—the chapter is sparsely and erratically footnoted—I came up empty, and in one case found two fragments of quotes, from different years and on different topics, welded together to create something that happily complimented Lehrer’s argument. Other quotes I couldn’t locate at all. […]
Over the next three weeks, Lehrer stonewalled, mislead and, eventually, outright lied to me. Yesterday, Lehrer finally confessed that he has never met or corresponded with Jeff Rosen, Dylan’s manager; he has never seen an unexpurgated version of Dylan’s interview for No Direction Home, something he offered up to stymie my search; that a missing quote he claimed could be found in an episode of Dylan’s “Theme Time Radio Hour” cannot , in fact, be found there; and that a 1995 radio interview, supposedly available in a printed collection of Dylan interviews called The Fiddler Now Upspoke, also didn’t exist. When, three weeks after our first contact, I asked Lehrer to explain his deceptions, he responded, for the first time in our communication, forthrightly: “I couldn’t find the original sources,” he said. “I panicked. And I’m deeply sorry for lying.”
Holy fuckballs. Moynihan continues, in detail. Definitely click through for this one.
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Not technology related — its tag line is “A new read on Jewish life”. And, incidentally, it has a wonderful wordmark. ↩
Elusive Sneezing Monkeys Photographed
Elusive Sneezing Monkeys Photographed
In February, I posted about a new species of monkey discovered in Asia in 2010 which was denied further study because the only known animal was killed and eaten. I juxtaposed that with an oddly prescient article from The Onion because I think I’m all clever and shit.
Well, since then, more have been found! Jeanna Bryner on LiveScience:
A group of monkeys whose nostrils are so upturned they are said to sneeze audibly when it rains has been discovered in China, say researchers, who have now snapped the first photographic evidence of the snub-nosed monkeys there.
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At the time, scientists thought the species was limited to the Kachin state of northeastern Myanmar.
The new discovery of the monkey, called “mey nwoah” in local dialects (or “monkey with an upturned face”), suggests its range extends into China.
A movie star makes India confront its taboos
A movie star makes India confront its taboos
AP report on social issues and TV in India:
Shining light on inequities like the rampant abortion of female fetuses, caste discrimination and the slaying of brides in dowry disputes, actor Aamir Khan has reached an estimated one-third of the country with a new TV talk show that tackles persistent flaws of modern India that many of its citizens would prefer to ignore.
“Satyamev Jayate”, or “Truth Alone Prevails,” is a clever blend of hard news and raw emotional appeal — part 60 Minutes, part Oprah. Its influence has even prodded the notoriously lethargic government machinery into action, though it’s too soon to know what policy changes may be in the works.
The issue the article spends the most time on is the abortion of female fetuses, which is a disgustingly enormous problem in India. Even just using an ultrasound machine to determine the sex of a fetus has been illegal since 1994. It hasn’t helped.
Judge Rules Nudity Can Be Constitutionally Protected as Free Speech
Judge Rules Nudity Can Be Constitutionally Protected as Free Speech
NIgel Duara, AP:
An Oregon man who stripped nude at Portland’s airport security to protest what he saw as invasive measures was found not guilty of indecent exposure.
Multnomah County Circuit Court Judge David Rees ruled Wednesday that John Brennan’s act was one of protest and therefore, protected speech.
Try adding some nudity to your next protest to spice things up a bit!