Out, damned spot! Fox News caught red-handed, laundering entries on Wikipedia. Keep on scrubbing, Lady MacFox, but those stains belong to you always.

The GOP’s California strategy: winning the 2008 election by undoing California’s winner-take-all electoral system. Once the state goes piecemeal, the Repubs gain at least 20 electoral votes from safe GOP districts.
Arianna Huffington looks […]

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The new Crowded House album, Time on Earth, was released last week in the US and the week before in the UK. It’s available for download from iTunes (with bonus tracks!) and of course you can get the CD from Amazon.
The band will be touring through December (including their two shows here in Chicago, […]

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John Conyers tells it like it T-I-Is: Conyers says Bush spared Libby from jail to keep him from singing. This is patently obvious to just about everyone, but of course the White House immediately called the charge “ridiculous and baseless.” Which allows it to join the distinguished list of other ideas the administration considers “ridiculous […]

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I found an old posting I made to the Planet-Earthlings Yahoo Group several years ago, back when the group was new and we were talking about favorite videos from the New Wave era. Most of the ones I wrote about are up on YouTube, so I figured I’d work my way through ‘em till I’ve […]

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POLITICS: The Washington Post brings us the fascinating story of how Cheney’s quest to undermine environmental science for political purposes led to a humongous pile of rotting dead fish. “… Because of Cheney’s intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was […]

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July 15 is “the day the music dies” — the date that Internet radio will be essentially destroyed by new draconic royalty fees approved by the Copyright Royalties Board if Congress doesn’t take action to fix the situation.
The exorbitant new rates force stations to pay a fixed fee for every song they play, regardless of […]

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POLITICS: In “Hillary’s Labor Problem,” Joe Conason points out that Hillary Clinton’s top political strategist, Mark Penn, is the CEO of a union-busting law firm. “Having started in a tiny, two-man polling operation in a New York City mayoral campaign, he is now the CEO of Burson-Marsteller Inc., one of the planet’s largest P.R. shops, […]

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Crowded House’s new single “Don’t Stop Now,” written with Johnny Marr, was released last week and is available from iTunes. (Click the record cover at right for a handy iTunes link.)
Meanwhile, I’m thrilled to report that I have a ticket for the Sunday, Aug. 19 show at House of Blues here in Chicago. (I got […]

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BOOKS: This week marked the release of Armistead Maupin’s new book Michael Tolliver Lives, which picks up the story of Michael “Mouse” Tolliver, the iconic character from Maupin’s Tales of the City series. Mouse is now in his mid-50s, living with HIV but happily married. Maupin says, “I wanted to tell the story of a […]

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COMICS: For once I’m starting out with the comics section, in honor of the fact that Salon has added Opus by the mighty Berkeley Breathed (Bloom County, Outland) to their repertoire. Oh, happy day. Here’s the first installment. Along with my favorites This Modern World by Tom Tomorrow and Tom the Dancing Bug […]

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The Rubber Nun is a big fan of this Random Ten meme-thingie and I’m a big fan of the Rubber Nun, so in honor of the elastic sister I thought I’d give it a spin myself.
Of course I think you’re supposed to do it on Fridays … but isn’t it still Friday in Singapore, […]

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Green Day’s cover version of “Working Class Hero” by John Lennon was released May 1 as the third single from Instant Karma: the Campaign to Save Darfur, Amnesty International’s album of Lennon covers by various artists to raise awareness about the human rights catastrophe in the Sudan. All proceeds from the album will go to […]

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I have three days’ worth of links accumulated and only one Friday afternoon roundup post to squeeze them into! Help me with the zipper.

As many as 6,000 hogs may have been fed melamine-tainted feed: “A USDA official said that so far states have quarantined one farm each in South Carolina, New York, North Carolina and […]

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Newt Gingrich calls on Abu Gonzales to resign.
Trying to sound like a big, butch hunter to please the NRA, dreadfully amusing little joke of a candidate Mitt Romney says he likes to hunt rabbits and refers to them as “varmints.” Tell it to the Easter bunny, Mitt. I hope he left a gaily decorated rotten […]

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