Earlier today, the Republican National Committee blasted out to reporters a research document with a link to an article in USA Today reporting that much of the stimulus package’s construction money will be spent in the districts of well-connected lawmakers. The RNC document cited the piece to argue that the stimulus cash is nothing but pork and isn’t going where it’s needed. “Where Are The Jobs?” the document demanded. “Where Is The Money? Why All The Pork?” But there’s only one problem: If you click through the link provided by the RNC to the article itself, you find that it actually targets a Republican Senator, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, as a primary recipient of this pork. The article actually has a picture of Cochran as its lead photograph.
Earlier today, the Republican National Committee blasted out to reporters a research document with a link to an article in USA Today reporting that much of the stimulus package’s construction money will be spent in the districts of well-connected lawmakers.
The RNC document cited the piece to argue that the stimulus cash is nothing but pork and isn’t going where it’s needed. “Where Are The Jobs?” the document demanded. “Where Is The Money? Why All The Pork?”
But there’s only one problem: If you click through the link provided by the RNC to the article itself, you find that it actually targets a Republican Senator, Thad Cochran of Mississippi, as a primary recipient of this pork.
The article actually has a picture of Cochran as its lead photograph.
Anytime the RNC wants to bash Thad Cochran, that's perfectly awesome. But seriously, Mississippi is getting the second most amount of stimulus money, with only California getting more. So its Republican delegation voted en masse against the stimulus, and now is working to get their state a disproportionate amount of that money.
Hypocrites.
Perhaps the Administration takes a different lesson from Bill Clinton's failure: that it was not so much the public salesmanship of the bill that was the problem, but rather, the the Clintons' inflexibility in the face of the political realities faced by the Congress. But the Doomsday Scenario for the White House is probably not that health care fails a straight up-or-down vote, but rather, that no individual version of the bill has enough votes to pass as legislators convince themselves they can hold out for an alternative more to their liking, while all the while the industry is having time bought for it to lobby against the bill, or to watch any of several political contingencies unfold (another crash in the stock market; the incapacitation of Senator Kennedy, which would deprive Democrats of a vote until a special election were held in Massachusetts) that could weaken the Democrats' position. This has been an extremely cautious White House to date; they have scrupulously avoided doing anything that might ruffle Congressional or public feathers and they are probably afraid of gambling on a specific plan and losing. But as Neville Chamberlain learned long ago, and Spock learned in the latest version of Star Trek, caution does not always equate with safety. It is time for the White House to take hold of this debate and not let go.
Perhaps the Administration takes a different lesson from Bill Clinton's failure: that it was not so much the public salesmanship of the bill that was the problem, but rather, the the Clintons' inflexibility in the face of the political realities faced by the Congress. But the Doomsday Scenario for the White House is probably not that health care fails a straight up-or-down vote, but rather, that no individual version of the bill has enough votes to pass as legislators convince themselves they can hold out for an alternative more to their liking, while all the while the industry is having time bought for it to lobby against the bill, or to watch any of several political contingencies unfold (another crash in the stock market; the incapacitation of Senator Kennedy, which would deprive Democrats of a vote until a special election were held in Massachusetts) that could weaken the Democrats' position.
This has been an extremely cautious White House to date; they have scrupulously avoided doing anything that might ruffle Congressional or public feathers and they are probably afraid of gambling on a specific plan and losing. But as Neville Chamberlain learned long ago, and Spock learned in the latest version of Star Trek, caution does not always equate with safety. It is time for the White House to take hold of this debate and not let go.
The recording industry secured a resounding victory when a Minnesota jury awarded the four major labels $1.92 million in damages after unanimously finding that Jammie Thomas-Rasset had willfully infringed on their copyrights by downloading and sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa peer-to-peer network. The mammoth size of the verdict, representing $80,000 per track, may help dissuade more P2P users from illegally downloading music, and for that the labels are happy. "We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this as seriously as we do," RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in a statement. "We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable."
The recording industry secured a resounding victory when a Minnesota jury awarded the four major labels $1.92 million in damages after unanimously finding that Jammie Thomas-Rasset had willfully infringed on their copyrights by downloading and sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa peer-to-peer network.
The mammoth size of the verdict, representing $80,000 per track, may help dissuade more P2P users from illegally downloading music, and for that the labels are happy. "We appreciate the jury's service and that they take this as seriously as we do," RIAA spokeswoman Cara Duckworth said in a statement.
"We are pleased that the jury agreed with the evidence and found the defendant liable."
If a number of other conservative publishers have their way, the Examiner will get more competition. PajamasMedia, the blog conglomerate that grew out of the “Rathergate” story, is talking to potential reporters for an investigative journalism site. Jennifer Rubin, the site’s Washington editor, declined to discuss the plans but pointed to the site’s coverage of anti-tax “Tea Parties” as proof that “the old model of elite journalists peddling liberal opinion as ‘objective reporting’ is dying.”
That's some serious hilarity.
Google’s promotion of Wikipedia content is hardly new: its search engine routinely lists Wikipedia articles as the first result for a search. But their use on the news site — especially as newspaper publishers have been complaining that Google was building a competing news site using headlines and snippets of newspaper articles — adds a new wrinkle to the question of how publications can control and charge for their content. In response to critics’ concerns over the accuracy of what appears on Wikipedia, the articles there, particularly about breaking news, can be meticulously sourced. The article “Iranian Presidential Election, 2009,” for example, had more than 200 footnotes by the weekend. So, in essence, many Wikipedia articles are another way that the work of news publications is quickly condensed and reused without compensation.
Google’s promotion of Wikipedia content is hardly new: its search engine routinely lists Wikipedia articles as the first result for a search. But their use on the news site — especially as newspaper publishers have been complaining that Google was building a competing news site using headlines and snippets of newspaper articles — adds a new wrinkle to the question of how publications can control and charge for their content.
In response to critics’ concerns over the accuracy of what appears on Wikipedia, the articles there, particularly about breaking news, can be meticulously sourced. The article “Iranian Presidential Election, 2009,” for example, had more than 200 footnotes by the weekend. So, in essence, many Wikipedia articles are another way that the work of news publications is quickly condensed and reused without compensation.
See? Citing a newspaper article is now stealing. Who knew every research paper I ever wrote in my years of schooling were little bundles of lawbreaking?