Bloomberg: President Barack Obama wants to see Edward Snowden clapped in irons and bound to the U.S. for a criminal trial. Two Norwegian politicians have a different fate in mind for Snowden: the Nobel Peace Prize. Norwegian parliamentarians Snorre Valen and Baard Vegar Solhjell nominated Snowden for the award — the same honor Obama himself […]
Paul Constant
Posted inMovies & TV
Turns Out, Mitt Romney Was a Human Being
Last week, Netflix debuted a new documentary about the 2008 and 2012 Romney campaigns called, simply, Mitt. As much as any documentary about a presidential candidate can be, it’s a strangely apolitical film; director Greg Whiteley had access to virtually every family gathering, but he had no access to private strategy meetings. That leaves the […]
Posted inMedia
Quentin Tarantino Sues Gawker: Who’s the Bigger Asshole?
Last week, the script for Quentin Tarantino’s next film, The Hateful Eight, was leaked. This led Tarantino to announce that he was canceling the project, publishing the script in book form, and moving on to his next film. Also last week, Gawker published links to the leaked Hateful Eight film script. Now Tarantino has taken […]
Posted inTech
This Year, Everyone Is Trying to Unmask Anonymous Commenters in Court
Juliet Linderman at NOLA.com says: The attorney for former New Orleans Affordable Homeownership Director Stacey Jackson is seeking private information from NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune about two anonymous online commenters. U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Wilkinson granted a request Tuesday (Jan. 21) from Jackson, who faces federal corruption charges, to subpoena NOLA Media Group for information […]
Posted inMovies & TV
Man with Google Glass Thrown Out of Movie Theater and Interrogated: Who’s the Bigger Asshole?
Rob Jackson at Phandroid writes: At an AMC theater in Easton Mall in Columbus, Ohio, one Google Glass Explorer went to see Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, but got a rude awakening instead. An hour into the movie he was approached by a federal agent who, without hesitation, snatched the Google Glass off the man’s face […]
Posted inPolitics
Chris Christie Is Just a Normal Politician Now
For a while there, Chris Christie had a certain glamour about him. To the average voter, he seemed like a politician who was above politics, who wasn’t petty, who said unpopular things and became more popular for it, because he said what he believed to be true. That kind of politician is a mythical beast, […]
Posted inGirls Only!
I Want to Talk About Lena Dunham for a Second
Some shit is just too ridiculous to engage. Let’s use our energy wisely, 2014.— Lena Dunham (@lenadunham) January 17, 2014 As soon as Breaking Bad ended, I realized that my favorite TV show on the air right now is Girls. It’s hard to be a Girls fan and not continually want to do battle with […]
Posted inGeek
Sci-Fi Convention Canceled After Hotel Manager Reportedly Calls Sci-Fi Fans “Freaks”
Lizzie Schiffman at DNAChicago says that a huge Chicago sci-fi convention has been postponed for a year: A major science fiction and fantasy convention scheduled to hit the city in March has been canceled and moved from the River North Westin Hotel after hotel staff referred to attendees as “freaks,” according to an announcement posted […]
Posted inGay Marriage
Ohio Catholic School Teacher Fired Because He Got Engaged to a Man
Here’s some class-A bullshit: A Ohio Catholic school has forced its choir and band director to resign after telling schools officials he and his boyfriend recently became engaged. Brian Panetta, who worked at Sandusky Central Catholic School for almost five years, was terminated Jan. 3 on the grounds that his engagement violated the religious teachings […]
Posted inPolitics
Maybe All That NSA Spying Isn’t Really Stopping Terrorists
The government claims that the NSA’s bulk collection and analysis of communications metadata is necessary to fight terrorism. The New America Foundation released a report today that calls bullshit on that claim. From their introduction to the report: An in-depth analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s […]
Posted inPolitics
Obamacare Site Builders To Be Fired
From the Washington Post‘s Juliet Eilperin and Amy Goldstein, here’s a piece of news that comes way too late to placate the haters: The Obama administration has decided to jettison CGI Federal, the main IT contractor that was responsible for building the defect-ridden online health insurance marketplace and has been immersed in the work of […]
Posted inPolitics
More Trouble for Chris Christie
An official inquiry is coming: New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced on Thursday he had fired a top aide at the center of a brewing scandal that public officials orchestrated a massive traffic snarl on the busy George Washington Bridge to settle a political score. The announcement came as the office of the U.S. attorney […]