A kindhearted reader just wrote to us: MORE »

Those locks. That shine. The style. The Pataki. [Gothamist] MORE »

• Editor and Publisher calls last night’s mining news snafu “one of the most disturbing media performances of its kind in recent years.” Uhm, isn’t it more logical to say that the terrible communication between officials and the families of the lost miners was the disturbing media performance? You better check your heavy-handedness amp, E&P, it looks like it’s turned to eleven. [Editor and Publisher] MORE »

It’s been a mixed blessing of a first day for me since Wonkette’s e-mail cup, filled with bile and other assorted goodies, slosheth at only half full. (I’m told this never happens.) And the subject that’s been most bandied about at this neverending banquet of ass-fuckery? Linguistics, or more specifically The Note’s unexplained yanking of “jejune” — followed by the covert and highly weird replacement of it with “peppery” — from a post about Bush’s “cowboy swagger and yuppie self-consciousness.” MORE »

We received this letter yesterday regarding the allegation that WT’s gossipmonger John McCaslin lifted his item about liberal bleating at a screening of “The Killers” from a right-wing blog:

As sent to Fishbowl…..
Garrett, thanks (I think) for the pair of plugs. I liked the first item better. My source for the item in question, who was a member of the film audience, is obviously the contributor to the blog. What appeared in my column is what he sent to me — in his own language — after he had telephoned me while I was in California that same week. He obviously rewrote what he had written for the Libertas blog. I had never seen the blog item until you posted portions of its text next to my text. I would appreciate you making this clear in your next fishbowl.
Thank you, John McCaslin  

There you go. McCaslin is not a plagiarist. And we don’t know where you got the idea he was lazy. MORE »

For those of you who were looking forward to today’s shuttle landing, we hope this tides you over: