Yet another reality show wannabe stunt: In a statement to The New York Times on Thursday, Bravo said that Half Yard Productions, the producers for the series “The Real Housewives of D.C.,” was under the impression that Michaele and Tarek Salahi, two polo-playing devotees of Washington’s social swirl and on-line social networks alike, had been invited to the biggest and most exclusive soiree to take place in Washington this year. “The cast of ‘The Real Housewives of D.C.’ has not been...

As Courage the Turkey received the official Obama Thanksgiving pardon yesterday, Radley Balko quoted this Debra Saunders lament: According to political science Professor P.S. Ruckman Jr. of Rock Valley College in Illinois, Obama, a former constitutional law professor, has taken longer to use the executive pardon and commutation power than all but four presidents – George Washington, John Adams, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Obama hasn’t pardoned a single ex-offender, even though about 1,200...

Mint Shopping: We looked at the major retailers within three categories; general, clothing, and electronics to predict how each will fare this holiday shopping season. Our research indicates that, while the general retail sector will lag year over year in Q4, clothing and electronics will likely beat 2008 numbers. More. And if you’re among those thinking of buying electronics, check out Farhad Manjoo’s Black Friday Is for Suckers — Netbooks, e-book readers, and other post-Thanksgiving...

As it happens, I was driving through Kentucky when I heard the news: The [Clay County, Kentucky] Census Bureau employee found dead in September killed himself and staged his death to look like a homicide, state and federal law enforcement officials said Tuesday. William E. Sparkman Jr. died of asphyxiation and was found with hands, feet and mouth bound with duct tape, a rope around his neck and the word “FED” written on his chest, investigators concluded. Passersby spotted his body on...

One of the most beautiful films I’ve ever seen is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Directed by Julian Schnabel, it’s the screen adaptation of a memoir by Jean-Dominique Bauby. The editor in chief of the French magazine Elle, Bauby suffered a massive stroke that left him a victim of locked-in syndrome at age 43. He went on to author his memoir by blinking his left eyelid as a transcriber repeatedly recited the alphabet until Bauby blinked to choose the next letter. I am reminded of...

Obama Foodorama’s Eddie Gehman Kohan promises wall-to-wall coverage of tomorrow’s first state dinner of the Obama administration — “Tweeting & blogging just that for the next 48 hours…” The plucky Eddie snagged an invite, and kicked off today with a history lesson from First Lady Michelle Obama in the State Dining Room. A “big tent” seating 400 (expect to see it all over the morning shows tomorrow) was raised on the South Lawn today. We catch...

So concludes James Kendrick in a WinMo match-up with Android. Android Phone Fans takes note: Multi-tasking. Windows came away with a “Big advantage” because of Android’s inability to run apps from SD Card. Available Apps. WIndows gets the advantage for a larger catalog of robust applications. User Interface. Windows Mobile wins because 3rd party apps are better looking. Desktop syncing/integration. Depends on if you prefer Outlook or Google. Fans concludes: So when it comes to...

Aol will be spun off from Time Warner on December 9. Yesterday they unveiled a new logo or, rather, they previewed set of logos. While the “Aol Dot.” will remain constant, the backgrounds will change continuously to suggest the breadth of the company’s content: The dot is a pivot point that shows AOL plus something else—Aol.Music, Aol.Asylum, Aol.MapQuest. Or hundreds of something elses. It’s also a sign that AOL is part of the web now, not on its own. Whether others will see what...

By 2020 say Intel Corp. researchers: [Intel scientist Dean] Pomerleau said researchers are close to gaining the ability to build brain sensing technology into a head set that culd be used to manipulate a computer. The next step is development of a tiny, far less cumbersome sensor that could be implanted inside the brain. Such brain research isn’t limited to Intel and its university partners. Almost two years ago, scientists in the U.S. and Japan announced that a monkey’s brain was used...

Bill Moyers offers up a fascinating hour of history that is a must listen/watch for those of us who are seriously interested in considering the question of what to do in Afghanistan. Whether we agree or disagree, advocate more troops or pulling them out, like Obama or despise him, using LBJ’s taped phone conversations and his own remembrances, Moyers’ look at Johnson’s deliberations as he stepped up America’s role in Vietnam is compelling history. From the program’s...

You’ll remember that the other day I pointed to a Poytner finding that The Daily Show is serious about its media criticism. Well it turns out Jon Stewart may have some real competition. The LATimes finds NBC News anchor Brian Williams — fresh off a 30 Rock cameo and Wait, Wait… Don’t Tell Me Bill Clinton impersonation — takes his comedy seriously: Stewart, host of Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” joked that he was “really annoyed” to...

This month’s perfect storm — poor medical reporting, denialism, and public health. Marketplace yesterday: For years, our medical system focused on the individual. The thinking was, even if only one life was saved, everyone should get tested. But the new studies show not everyone needs screening. In fact, too much screening can do more harm than good. Dr. Louise Russell studies preventive care at Rutgers University. She says patients have to change their mind sets. Think about the odds...

So many tasty morsels so many are uncovering. (All that and not one link to Andrew Sullivan. I’ll spend Saturday enjoying his finds.) One topic Sarah touches on that’s relevant to my interest in food is her love of meat. From page 18: I love meat. I eat pork chops, thick bacon-burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak. But I especially love moose and caribou. Note, especially, the medium-well-done. Sarah’s confident that those few liberals who still eat meat...

The story behind the much-heralded Associated Press fact check was detailed in a weekly internal newsletter to the company’s 4,000 employees. TPMDC snagged a copy: Mike Oreskes, a senior managing editor, offers staffers a description of the AP’s own work tracking down and fact checking the book and it reads like a spy thriller: “The AP was determined to get the first copy,” Oreskes wrote, detailing how the writers learned a store had “inadvertently placed the book on...

“The Oprah Winfrey Show” will end in 2011 as she prepares to start a cable channel of her own. Media Decoder: A spokeswoman for Ms. Winfrey’s production company, Harpo, confirmed Thursday evening that Ms. Winfrey would make an announcement on her show on Friday. The plans were first reported by WABC, the ABC station in New York City. “The sun will set on the Oprah show as its 25th season draws to a close on Sept. 9, 2011,” Tim Bennett, the president of Harpo, said in a message to...

Warren suggested a Financial Product Safety Commission in a 2007 article; Obama proposed it to Congress in June as the Consumer Financial Protection Agency. Speculation is (wishes?) she could head the agency. Bloomberg.com profiles her life: Warren began at George Washington at 17. At 19, she married mathematician Jim Warren, who worked at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, and finished her degree at the University of Houston. They divorced in 1978. Her second husband, Bruce Mann, is Harvard’s...

A study of 200 students published in the British Journal of Criminology found that many wrongly blame the effects of a “bad night out” on date-rape drugs when, in fact, they just drank too much. Some are in “active denial” and fears of date-rape drugs are so pervasive that students think it happens more often than the abuse as a consequence of drugs, binge drinking, or walking alone at night. The Telegraph headlines its story, date-rape drink spiking ‘an urban legend’: Among...

With Joe Biden Tuesday, Lou Dobbs last night, and Hannity caught faking the news last week*, The Daily Show continues on it’s long hot roll. Here’s a Poytner look inside the most effective media criticism shop in America: “I feel like there are lot of critics of the government but there are very few critics of the media who have an audience and are credible and keep a watch on things,” said “Daily Show” writer Elliott Kalan. “That’s a role that we...

“I don’t think it should be a surprise for anyone to hear I’m gay… I’ve been living in Los Angeles for eight years as a gay man. I’ve been at clubs drunk making out with somebody in the corner. I’m proud of my sexuality. I embrace it. It’s just another part of me.” That from Adam Lambert in a Rolling Stone cover story interview shortly after he was named the American Idol runner-up last June. Lambert, a singer said to know “his own inner David...

Amelia Tyagi, on Marketplace today, arguing that a Consumer Financial Protection Association could help level the playing field and force banks to be honest with their customers: Once upon a time, banking was a pretty boring business. Banks took deposits, made loans, and people paid them back. Profits were modest but predictable. And then the industry was deregulated, and all bets were off. No longer did banks make their profits from reasonably priced loans to people who were able to pay. Instead,...

The NYTimes looks at naming the ’00s. I like this guy, science fiction writer David Brin: “I would recommend the Noughty-aughts,” he said. “ ‘Nought’ as in zero. ‘Aught’ as in nothing. Both words contain essentially nothing, because this was an era when no progress was made.” Mr. Brin looks at the ’00s as a great lost opportunity, the decade when “the drug high of self-righteousness poisoned our inherent American joy in pragmatic problem solving.” We missed the chance to solve...

Chris Mooney — he wrote the book on The Republican War on Science — says the scientific plot of the movie is not only bizarre but incomprehensible. Still, he says Roland Emmerich’s catastrophic sci-fi blockbuster is evidence that anti-science sentiment in Hollywood is declining: We’re seeing a lot fewer mad scientists in major Hollywood films today, and a lot more scientist heroes. In 2012, the hero is Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who is–and this cracked me up–a...

To buy their silent support. The NYTimes: Four former Blackwater executives said in interviews that Gary Jackson, who was then the company’s president, had approved the bribes, and the money was sent from Amman, Jordan, where Blackwater maintains an operations hub, to a top manager in Iraq. The executives, though, said they did not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or the identities of the potential recipients. Blackwater’s strategy of buying off the government officials,...

Not a Halloween costume either. I had to see it to believe it. Reuters posted video yesterday, calling it a novel way to address personal safety: Aya Tsukioka’s Coke-machine dress allows the wearer to quickly change appearance to that of a vending machine – blending into the urban landscape. A Japanese man says in the report that he thinks women would be better off running than pulling up a skirt to blend in as a fake soda machine. Tsukioka also has a manhole cover bag — when...

Due in November, Prejean’s Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks, has a foreword by Sean Hannity. Prejean was a guest on his show last night. From the LATimes, Top of the Ticket: The handsome host noted that the high-powered, celebrity website TMZ claimed to have a sex video of the beautiful Prejean that was so outrageously explicit it hasn't posted it yet. But people can feel free to keep clicking back there every few minutes to check....