Mock, Paper, Scissors

I thought at first this job posting at Twitter had to be a joke:

Media – Head of News and Journalism (SF or NY)

Full-Time — New York City, NY

Twitter is playing an integral role in the evolution of the news industry — both as a tool for reporters and newsrooms and as a way for consumers to find news in real-time. Twitter has already changed the way news breaks and provided journalists new ways to connect with their readers. We are looking for a seasoned leader to shape and drive the next growth phase of Twitter’s partnership with the news industry. We believe Twitter is a valuable complement to the great work already being done and want to find ways for Twitter to help ensure the industry’s success.

You will be responsible for devising and executing the strategies that make Twitter indispensable to newsrooms and journalists, as well as an essential part of the operations and strategy of news organizations and TV news networks. You should have a strong vision for the broad potential of Twitter and news, while also being able to rigorously manage and scale the news team’s daily impact.

You will be also Twitter’s representative to the News industry. You will manage Twitter’s partnerships with newsrooms in the United States as well its relationships with journalists. You will be responsible for representing Twitter at industry events.

You must have deep experience leading teams in reporting, editing or managing journalists, as well as a strong record of executing strategic partnerships. (This role will report to Head of Media)

But if it is, then the Guardian UK fell for it.

The thing is, I think that The Guardian’s enthusiasm–while infectious in that reserved, British-style–might actually be well-placed. The updates that have come through Twitter on newsworthy events like the Boston Bombing were timely and uncannily accurate; crowd sourcing huge public events like that give you a very accurate picture. Twitter as a communications platform is unrivaled for real-time information.

And before you laugh at the thought of news in 140-character bites, consider how that limitation would force you as a reporter to not embellish who, what, where, when. Why and how? Well, maybe that becomes a link to a more in-depth piece. But by its very limited nature, Twitter should remove the editorial from news reporting.

The problem is, and will always be, about the credibility of the news sources. But that is the problem with the MSM, too. CNN has crashed and burned so many times with bad reporting that few people turn to them any longer. The challenge with Twitter for news junkies is going to be the same challenge with using Yelp: who do you believe?

(Guardian UK)

Eat your heart out, Cannibal Cop: Cannibalism at Jamestown Colony.

The first chops, to the forehead, did not go through the bone and are perhaps evidence of hesitancy about the task. The next set, after the body was rolled over, were more effective. One cut split the skull all the way to the base.

“The person is truly figuring it out as they go,” said Douglas Owsley, a physical anthropologist at the Smithsonian Institution.

In the meantime, someone — perhaps with more experience — was working on a leg. The tibia bone is broken with a single blow, as one might do in butchering a cow.

That’s one possible version of an event that took place sometime during the winter of 1609-1610 in Jamestown. What’s certain is that some members of that desperate colony resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.

…and thus was born the earliest part of the Southern GOP. And of course, it was a teenage girl that they decided to serve, but it was primitive times during a terrible winter.. Later on, of course, they burned women at the barbecue, er, stake.

No word on seasoning or sauces, but you cannot have everything when you are working out a recipe…

Anderson Cooper’s team tracked down a scam artist bilking cash in the wake of Newtown. In the name of reporting the facts of the story, around the 1:40 mark of the clip, even Anderson Cooper gives a look of, “What the hell are we reporting?” It’s okay to ask people if they understand that their explanations sound ludicrous. I do give them credit for daylighting this as this is a pretty horrible person.

Hubba-hubba

Now here’s some news you can use:

Purple is the most amorous color, according to a new study which found that people who decorate their bedrooms in the color have the most active sex lives.

The survey of 2,000 British adults by retailer Littlewoods found that those with purple bedding or furniture had 3.49 “intimate encounters” per week. The least active color scheme in the survey was grey, averaging 1.8.

I rented a house that was painted violet-gray inside, and I can attest that these statistics are true.

(Yahoo News)

Death of the Media

By now everyone has seen the little filler article that states that Apple Inc. has more cash on hand than the US government, right?

Well, this being Silicon Valley, our newspaper The San Jose Mercury News (motto: There’s no time to run the spell-checker!) has to put their own spin on the story, and so they put their intrepid technology reporter, John Boudreau, on the scent. And lo! he smells it up!

Though it was founded 200 years after the United States, Apple has more cash in the bank than the world’s largest economy.

Quite a lede you got there, Sparky. Anyway, to liven things up, Boudreau decided to go to idiot quote-spewing technology analyst Rob Enderle to get some expert insight:

“If Apple can do no wrong, the United States can do no right,” quipped long-time Silicon Valley tech analyst Rob Enderle.

Say what? For the record, Enderle has Google, Microsoft, and Dell as paying customers, and has long rooted for Apple to go out of business.

Anyway, Boudreau continues with his usual mad journo-school skillz:

Still, imagine if the functions of the federal government were run like Apple: their efficient ease-of-use, not to mention stylish appearance, would inspire love and admiration around the globe.

Oooookay… but luckily for Boudreau, Enderle gives him the money-shot, so to speak:

“The U.S. government can print money,” Enderle observed. “If Apple actually printed cash, it would get into some trouble.”

And that’s the news from Silicon Valley.

(Mercury News)

2012 Goat Rodeo news you can use all day

Mario Brothers, the Movie

• God’s Will - Anyone remember Alabama Judge Roy Moore? Me neither, he’s the dude who put up the 10 Commandments monument outside of his courtroom and was promptly fired. Anyway, he’s now running for Preznint. Moore’s platform will be focused on repealing health care, the flat tax, and immigration, as Ronald Reagan would want. (CBS)
• Boss Hogg woos Gomer - It’s like a bad sitcom. Haley Barbour is trying to get Mike Huckabee to declare his intentions, like a gentleman. “Whether it is for me, or Mike Huckabee, or anyone else, because I want your children and grandchildren, my children and grandchildren to inherit the same country inherited.” Uh-oh, sounds like Boss Hogg found the jug of corn liquor out back, and hilarity ensues. (Politico)
• Polo! - Marco Rubio, the Teabagging goofball hot-headed Senator from Florida, is not RUNNING for Preznint. Quit asking him to RUN for Preznint. He will, however, use his huge, Dumbo-like ears if you ask him about being the VP. (The Ticket)

News you can use all day

The Donald designs a new line of dolls, complete with bad comb-overs.

• GE Brings Good Things to Life (and pays no taxes) - Remember in January, President Carebear appointed General Electric CEO Jeffrey Immelt to head the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, an economic advisory board focused on job creation? Me neither! But it seems the White House is now defending that choice as GE again is paying $0 in taxes, and in fact is claiming $3.2 BILLION in tax benefits. Gee, couldn’t see this one coming, as you take aim at your foot again, could ya? (Political Hotsheet)
• Fake Politician gets book deal - Columbia College assistant journalism professor Dan Sinker, the genius behind @MayorEmanuel, the funny, fake Twitter account that made pitch-perfect parody of Rahm Emanuel’s Chicago mayoral run, is getting a book deal. For once a writer is getting ahead! (HuffPo — yes, sadly I’m linking to HuffPo. But you don’t have to click the link.)
• What was old is new again - Just like in the 2008 Goat Rodeo, the early leaders are Mitt Romney (Magic Panties, everywhere) and Mike Huckabee (Squirrel Fritters, Jebusland). Will history repeat itself? (Reuters)

News you can use all day

Why non-stick pans were invented

• Buzzzzzzzzzz - Bachmann-the-Nut and technology seem to be a bad mix. She held a “Facebook Town Hall Meeting” on Thursday and her speech was drowned out by “headache-inducing static and screeches,” which actually sounds like a Bachmann-the-Nut speech to us, or maybe it is her dog-whistle for her followers? Who can say. (Politico)
• 2012 Goat Rodeo Update 1 - Ron Paul says his decision to run for Preznint in 2012 will depend on the dollar. We think he means bribes, but the reporter seems to indicate that Paul means the value of the dollar. Gold forever! (Des Moines Register)
• Goat Rodeo Update 2 - Whoopsie! Former Utah Governor and Ambassador to China, John Huntsman is still registered to vote… at the Governor’s mansion. He hasn’t lived there for 19 months, but he voted by absentee ballot from there while in China. It is generally illegal for voters to cast ballots using a residential address where they no longer reside. But as Anne Coulter showed us, rules don’t apply to the GOP. (Utah News)

NYT publisher Arthur Sulzberger, on defeating their new pay wall:

“Can people go around the system?” Sulzberger asked during an appearance at The Paley Center for Media here. “The answer is yes. There are going to be ways.

“Just as if you run down Sixth Avenue right now and you pass a newsstand and grab the paper and keep running you can actually get the Times free,” he said.

“We have to accept that. Is it going easy? No. Is it going to be done by the kind of people who buy the quality news and opinion of the New York Times?

“We don’t think so,” he said.

“It’ll be mostly high school kids and people out of work,” Sulzberger said, before adding “I can’t believe I said that.”

Asshole.

(The Age)

BENNINGTON, Vt. – A Vermont neighborhood is being stalked by a renegade gray squirrel.

Several people in Bennington say they’ve been attacked by a squirrel over the last few weeks.

Kevin McDonald tells the Bennington Banner he was shoveling snow when the squirrel jumped onto him. He says he threw the animal off, but it twice jumped back onto him. A game warden says there have been other reports, too.

One woman is being treated for exposure to rabies, but Vermont Public Health Veterinarian Robert Johnson says there’s never been a case of a squirrel passing rabies to a human.

Johnson says it’s possible the squirrel was raised as a pet and lost its fear of humans. He says the squirrel might “go ballistic” when it encounters people it doesn’t recognize.

Dogs have warned us for years that this day would come.

Death of the Media

(Hat tip: Skinny-D)

Noted theologian and happily heterosexually-married senator Mitch McConnell says that he takes President Obama’s word that he is a Christian.

Thank you, David Gregory for this hard-hitting line of interrogation. But, gee, your hair looks great.

UPDATE: More dog-whistle

(The Flash video is kinda wonky, so I didn’t want to embed it.)

Gawker

This is why I giggle whenever anyone says, “Well, according to Wolf Blitzer…”

…is over at the Magpie.

News you can use all day

• Death Panels Insurers Finding the loopholes - Insurance companies are now saying that they won’t deny coverage, but they might only offer “open enrollment” once per year. Good luck with that brain cancer!
• Crack-heads, rejoice! - The new fairer sentencing laws that come closer to normalizing the penalties for possessing crack cocaine with the stuff the Wall Street Banker snort off the ass of $1000/hour hookers. Anyway, President Carebear is going to sign this into law today, and Chimpy will be given the signing pen to use as his new coke straw.
• Mr. Ty-D Bol passes - Actor Dan Resin died at age 79. Besides being Mr. Ty D Bol, his career was flush with many successes, including Dr. Beeper in Caddyshack. Our good friends at The Awl are hoping that there will be a burial at sea. I’m banking on a cremation on someone’s doorstep.

News you can use all day

Bachmann-the-Nut’s official limo.

• How does Mooselini know about President Carebear’s cajones? - Anyway, she says he doesn’t have any, and that’s why everyone should support Jan Brewer. Mooselini, who stepped down from her only elected office after being questioned by the lame-stream media says Jan Brewer has balls?
• Yoda speaks! - Someone let Alan Greenspan out of the home for the aged and irresponsible economists, and invited him on Dick David Gregory’s American Hamstand. Somehow Greenie managed to croak out that tax cuts do not pay for themselves, and GOPers everywhere wet themselves (and not in the good way).
• Strange Bedfellows - Confirmed Bachelor, Senatorette Lindsey Graham says that he wants to repeal the 14th Amendment (the one that says if you are born here, you are a citizen) and Jon Kyle jumps into bed with him. Could it be love?

Can it be that the Dancin’ Fool, David Gregory, the noted rap impresario, actually looked at his old Journalism 101 textbook and saw something about follow-up questions?

What does distinguish the Republican Party of today from the Republican Party under President Bush’s rule with regards to spending, which is where it got out of control — under Republican rule,” asked host David Gregory on NBC’s Meet The Press.

And when GOP’s ambassador of assrocketry, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) dodged the question:

Where did some of that debt come from?” Gregory asked. “The President of the United States was George Bush when they passed a huge TARP, which was to bail out the banks. I mean that’s what ran up a lot of debt as well. Are you saying a Republican was somehow different?”

And when Cornyn tap-danced away from that one:

But Gregory persisted in his original question. “So my question is still: What is the distinction of the Republican Party of today versus the Bush record that you’re defending?”

I’m sure it was only a momentary lapse, and he will recover and go back to asking tough questions about favorite colors, and if his subject saw 30 Rock last week.

News you can use all day

The Creationist Museum’s Wild West Display is interactive!

• Earthquake in D.C. - 3.7 earthquake (ha, that’s nothing) hits the Capitol, everyone worried it was the return of Hastert going to the all-you-can-eat buffet at some lobbyist’s townhouse.
• Filthy proles protest in front of eMeg’s House - As curious neighbors watched, [1,000+ ] nurses from around the state arrived in dozens of buses and marched along Edge Road for a 1 p.m. demonstration organized by the California Nurses Association.
• W. Virginia appoints man 1/3 age of Byrd to replace Byrd - Gov. Joe Manchin is tapping his former chief counsel and a member of a prominent West Virginia family, Carte Goodwin, to succeed the late U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, Democratic officials told The Associated Press on Friday.Does that mean he’ll live the rest of his life in the Senate, as beloved W. Virginia tradition requires?

News you can use all day

Sen. Bob Bennett (R-UT) and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) want to see this man’s junk. Hubba-hubba!

• The Senate wants to see your junk - A bipartisan bill introduced in the Senate requiring all airports to use full-body scanners lacks sufficient privacy safeguards, says a prominent watchdog group.
• Barefoot and imprisoned - Witnesses on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera recognized the 19-year-old dubbed the “Barefoot Bandit” and called police, who captured him after a high-speed boat chase, Bahamas Police Commissioner Ellison Greenslade said at a celebratory news conference in Nassau, the capital.
• Creamy nougat centers – A seemingly anonymous gift left on the front porch of a Houston home owned by an oil company executive has the city’s affluent population of oil profiteers on edge this weekend, after that package exploded and seriously injured a 62-year-old woman. (Next time, disguise it as a 5-pound box of $100 bills, and you’ll get the executive and not his wife.)

News you can use all day

When an old queen wants a RIM…

• QE2 in NYC for 5hrs - Aging monarch, Queen Lizzie, wife of the appalling old racist Prince Phillip (not in a can), will be in NYC today to visit ground zero and address the United Nations for the first time in 50 years. Will hilarity ensue? Bet on it!
• What does it cost to keep an old queen in the style to which she’s grown accustomed? - about $0.94 cents a year, Brits. Save your pence, those gawd-awful hats doen’t come cheap!
• Old aligator wandering about - An alligator was found roaming the streets of a small German town in the middle of the night, authorities said on Friday.

News you can use all day

The new GOP jobs plan.

• Manufacturers want YOU! – Factories are hiring again, but because you slobs are too stupid, well, they might have to look elsewhere. “The new worker of tomorrow is in about sixth grade. And they need training to move into manufacturing.”
• Happily heterosexual, Charlie Crist - Charlie the Lonesome Tuna, foremerly an Orange-colored Republican and now an Orange-colored Indpendent (hahahaha) is now turning to Dims for funds, because, why not? The GOP is funding the not-quite Orange-colored Ricky Ricardo impersonator, Marco Polo.
• Paycuts – The Governator has ordered Californiastan state employees to take Federal Minimum Wage, because, well why not, he’s an Orange-colored Republican and they hate working people. The state is broke and there is no budget as usual.

News you can use all day

About that ant, Weepy-the-Orange…

• They say you should emulate the boss – Maybe-lesbian nominee for SCOTUS, a woman without a past, opinions, or a track record, Elena Kagan looks to be coasting to a confirmation.
• Your representative in Congress doesn’t represent you - Weeeee! Congress leaves for the break and leaves those gross unemployed people on the curb to be recycled.
• Happy Birthday, Healthcare Reform! - Today is when some of the first provisions of HCR are set to kick in, like the 10% Tanning Bed Tax. How do you plan to celebrate, Anthem Blue Cross? Only a 20% rate increase!

News you can use all day

BP Customer Service Center

• Illegal Immigration - Hurricane Alex is sneaking across the border from Mexico into Texas. Papers, please.
• Our Modern World - researcher looking into an in-vitro “cure” for women who want to work in “masculine jobs” and who might become bisexual or lesbians. (Rachel, will you whoop this bitchsquealer’s ass, please?)
• Why aren’t you spending the money you don’t have from the paychecks you don’t receive? – Fears of a double-dip recession (which look like a dubya, if you know what I mean and I think you do) have rocked the stock markets, which means that Goldman Sachs is probably banking on it.

News you can use all day

Proof that you can be too thin.

• Mark Kirk will set the record straight - Notorius fibber and Senate Candidate, Mark Kirk, is holding a press conference this morning to try to reset his campaign, and he will accept his Nobel Prize in the afternoon, his Oscar this evening, and announce the cure for cancer tomorrow.
• Steve Forbes never read Miss Manners - Robert Byrd is still warm and Mr. FlatTax is already tweeting away that it is good news because Byrd’s death, Finance Reform will fail. Doesn’t the non-blinking space alien inside of Forbes’ shell know that it is bad form to gloat over vanquished enemies, at least publicly (unless you are a gross blogger)?
• Fat-fingered Tony will never be Pope - the Supreme Court says Americans can sue the Vatican over sex-abuse cases.

News you can use all day

Gay Pride Week Continues – now that’s a FABULOUS mariachi band!

• Ben Nelson successfully filibusters Jobs Bill - When they return from their week long break, over 2 Million Americans will have been cut off from all benefits and unless the Dims can somehow revive it, all continued assistance will phase out by October. Will Ben Nelson negotiate a Corn Husker Helping Hand for Nebraska?
• Conservatives Baffled - Mortage Rates at all time lows and yet no one is buying homes? Ayn Rand wonders why?
• Today in History - Someone famous Beat It.

News you can use all day

Gay Pride Week continues: Recycling day at the dyke bar.

• Ah feel your victory - Big Dawg appears out of nowhere at the US World Cup’s Team Victory. “Somewhere in the middle Clinton cleared his throat and gave a brief speech…” (I bet he did.)
• You’re a mean one, MR. GOP - A Republican filibuster appears increasingly likely to kill long-sought legislation extending jobless benefits. Failure to pass the bill would mean about 200,000 jobless people a week would lose benefits. Governors denied help with their budget woes are likely to lay off tens of thousands of state workers.
• GOP gets fresh influx of cash - Um, what about that free-market of ideas? Well, nevermind, Ayn Rand, because even though the RNCC is not raising anywhere near as much money as the Dims, Weepy the Orange is pledging $1M of his own fund-raising money to them. The money had been earmarked for a tanning bed and a pack of smokes.

News you can use all day

Gay Pride Week continues “Girlfriend, I am your father!”

• Massive, colossal FAIL - Turdblossom’s 527 group raised $200 last month, not the $52,000,000 that they anticipated.
• Buy him a copy of Miss Manners so he can write gracious thank-you notes- Joe Barton gets to keep his job as the senior GOPer on the Energy Committee, even after he apologized to BP for President Carebear’s Chicago-style shake-down of the energy giant.
• Mighty-Morphine Power Rangers lasts 30 minutes, too - McChrystal’s and President Carebear’s meeting lasted 30 minutes, and then McChrystal left the white house. Things are looking good for our sword-wielding +3 Bin Laden hunter!

News you can use all day

Questioning? It’s Gay Pride Week!

• Hunka-hunka Burnin’ Love - Nerdbait Peter Orzag, the Love-God White House Budget Director (and infamous womanizer and impregnator, and he’s gross), is quitting the White House before Rahm (take that, Mr. Pottymouth).
• Final Fantasy Primary - Today we learn if Nikki Haley has slept with enough people in South Carolina to earn their votes to become the next big-haired sex-lizard governor of that state, and if she wins the right to start bangin’ Argentines. Mooselini and Mittens say, “Yes!”
• Old Habits - And Sex Lizard Governor Mark Sanford “went on vacation” again and didn’t tell André Bauer (probably gay, probably French) the Lt. Governor where he was.

News you can use all day

“Not even with a full-body condom… oh, wait.”

• Endless Bummer - President Carebear gave a speech from the Oval Office, whose call to action was for us to pray? Doesn’t he know that God struck Touchdown Jeebus with lightening?
• Maybe he’ll barf today? - Gen. David Petraeus, the head of U.S. Central Command, is scheduled to return to the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday to resume his testimony about operations in Afghanistan. You may recall yesterday that Grandpa Walnuts’ old man stink made him pass out, HEEEEEEENNNNNNNNNNNNNNNGH?
• There’s an App for that - AT&T and Apple’s networks were so overloaded with orders for new iPhones that the Twitter Fail Whale was grinning. Ironically, the iPhone Store App on older iPhones was the only way to order them easily.