Link Banana

For some reason neglecting to mention recent rumors about a CNN-CBS pairing, Troy Patterson says that CBS’s news products are so bad they should just take pity and pull them off the air. His opening barb:

To judge by the ads, the most loyal adherents to CBS’ quasi-journalistic programming are impotent and incontinent. It so happens that they share these afflictions with the network’s actual news division.

With a title like that I had to read Troy Patterson’s piece. The problem?

“pseudo-satire,” which is cynical and shallow and treats politics “like an infection” and stands in contrast to the real satire that, for instance, Jon Stewart offered on the subject of the botched joke and the way it was spun: “After an election in which the GOP has been beaten up by, let’s say, reality, the party has rediscovered a winning issue: the has-been’s faux pas.” Where O’Brien’s pseudo-satrical joke trivializes the political process, Stewart’s engages it by laughing at that very trivialization. The distinction isn’t simply a matter of what’s funny; well-constructed pseudo-satire often deserves more laughs than preachy satirical jokes. It’s about the fact that comedy can perform a watchdog role and seems more ready to shirk it than Judith Miller. “By avoiding issues in favor of personalities,” writes Peterson, “and by ‘balancing’ these shallow criticisms between conservatives and liberals, late-night comics are playing it safe but endangering democracy.”

The same people who brought you crowdsourced color names, have crowdsourced the evaluation of media bias. Their results look interesting, even if I’m not sure they’re trustworthy. (It appears they let people know the source of the story, which could very well change their perception of that story’s bias.)

A cool new prize:

The purse will be split between two categories: mainstream and alternative cars. Mainstream cars must carry four or more passengers and have climate control, an audio system and 10 cubic feet of cargo space.

They also must have four or more wheels, hit 60 miles per hour in less than 12 seconds and have a minimum top speed of 100 miles per hour and a range of 200 miles.

Alternative vehicles will be required to carry two or more passengers and five cubic feet of cargo, have a top speed of at least 80 miles per hour and have a range of at least 100 miles.

(via Slashdot)

Bonus note: I still think the foundation should do something more like this.

Turns out the plan to suspend talks earlier this week worked. We should all be glad for that.

Kenya’s rival politicians have signed a peace deal to end the violent post-election crisis in which hundreds died.

President Mwai Kibaki and opposition leader Raila Odinga agreed to form a coalition government after weeks of wrangling, mediator Kofi Annan said.

Slate’s Troy Patterson thinks so.

Liberals would seem to believe that Bush strategist Karl Rove is a monster genetically engineered from the DNA material recovered from a fair copy of Il Principe, Pat Nixon’s cloth coat, and one of Lee Atwater’s old guitar picks, while moderates regard him with a vague but considerable sense of respectful queasiness. I will not pretend to understand what our friends on the Right think of the man, but the president of the United States calls him “Boy Genius,” and those nicknames have got to count for something. All concerned parties must be a bit unnerved by Rove’s recent performance as a contributor to Fox News.

Since materializing on-air on Super Tuesday, Rove has merely offered clarity, concision, humility, good humor, good posture, and dispassionate analysis. To be sure, there are lefties distraught that he does not eat babies on-air. Maybe some conservatives, too. But the only thing more impressive than hearing the man drop political science—what other cable-news analyst has lately name-checked Henry Cabot Lodge?—is seeing that one of our culture’s most controversial figures is one of its most mild-mannered. Given the jaunty clattering of MSNBC’s 24/7 locker room, the rapid-fire banter of CNN’s endless phalanxes of conventional wiseguys, and the screeching maelstrom summoned nightly by Rove’s Fox colleagues, the guy plays like a human comma, a very welcome thoughtful pause.

Salon’s got the best-looking and most-informative (if slightly slower than others) results page I’ve seen — though I’m disappointed by the lack of a Huckabee cartoon. If you’re looking to see the results roughly as they come in, this is what I’d watch.

Having said that, if you can’t handle the delay, CNN does seem the most up-to-the-minute.

Jack Shafer says what most visitors to the sites have known for a while:

In their craven pursuit of clicks, the editors at CNN.com, MSNBC.com, and Foxnews.com turn their sites into virtual tabloids by peppering their home pages with the most sordid and bizarre stories that can be culled from the world’s news wires.

Engaging in what is probably a fair measure of premature and gleeful grave-digging and dancing, Eric Boehlert does a good job explaining all that has gone wrong for Fox News recently.

Let’s take an extended multiple choice quiz. Right now, which of the following topics is likely causing the discomfort inside Ailes’ Fox News empire?

A) CNN’s resurgence as the go-to cable destination for election coverage.
B) The unmistakably sunken candidacy of Fox News’ favored son, Rudy Giuliani.
C) The still-standing candidacy of Fox News nemesis and well-funded antiwar GOP candidate Rep. Ron Paul.
D) The Democratic candidates’ blanket refusal to debate on Fox News during the primary season.
E) Host Bill O’Reilly being so desperate for an interview from a Democratic contender that he had to schlep all the way to New Hampshire, where he shoved an aide to Sen. Barack Obama and then had to be calmed down by Secret Service agents.
F) Former Fox News architect and Ailes confidant Dan Cooper posting chapters from his wildly unflattering tell-all book about his old boss. (“The best thing that ever happened to Roger Ailes was 9/11.”)
G) The fledgling Fox Business Network, whose anemic ratings are in danger of being surpassed by some large city public access channels.
H) Host John Gibson’s recent heartless attacks on Heath Ledger, just hours after the young actor was found dead.
I) Fox News reporter Major Garrett botching his “exclusive” that Paul Begala and James Carville were going to join Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, and then refusing to correct the record.

I’d say it’s A, B, C, D, E, F and G. (I doubt Gibson’s grave-dancing or Garrett’s whopper caused Ailes a moment’s concern.)

This isn’t actually news — it appears to have happened a while ago — but being half of a pair of mixed-sex fraternal twin it seemed morbidly interesting to me. The British pair had been adopted by separate couples at birth and didn’t find out they were related until after they were married. Strange indeed.

(via Boing Boing)