True story: Nickelback once headlined a show at my college. Before the concert there was a band playing outside (Starsailor, I think — I’m a sucker for Britpop) in a free concert. So I walked all the way to the other side of campus to see Starsailor for free, bought a CD, then walked home. All without seeing Nickelback. Why did I need to? I saw a band that was 50 times better for free. This was like a decade ago, and they sucked back then, too. For all I know the members of Starsailor now work at Starbucks — just like Nickelback founding member Mike Kroeger did when he came up with the name for his awful, awful band. Anyway, this story is funny. — Ernie @ SFB
Jay Townsend has offered, and I have accepted, his resignation from his position with my campaign. Now let’s return to talking about issues that really matter to families: job creation, spending restraint and economic development.
Townsend’s comments caused strong controversy over the weekend.
While the government presented a convincing case for Edwards’ general turpitude, what it failed to do was show that he had committed a crime. This prosecution was a stretch from the beginning. Edwards was accused of violating campaign finance laws, but those laws are notoriously arcane. None directly addresses a candidate or his staff soliciting contributions to cover up a candidate’s affair. It was not surprising that, navigating this murky legal landscape, at least some jurors would accept the defense’s contention that the funds were gifts rather than campaign contributions – and that the campaign finance laws therefore did not apply.
Cohen’s argument? The defense pulled off a savvy move by never playing Edwards as the innocent, arguing that while while he certainly was guilty of personal failings, they did not equate to the campaign finance crimes he was accused of. Edwards essentially said this at his press conference yesterday: “While I do not believe I did anything illegal, or ever thought that what I was doing illegal, I did an awful, awful lot that was wrong.” Agree? (EDIT: minor correction)
We’re not taking away anybody’s right to do things, we’re simply forcing you to understand that you have to make the conscious decision to go from one cup to another cup.NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg • Speaking on MSNBC about his proposed ban on soft-drink containers bigger than 16 ounces. “The idea here is, you tend to eat all the food in the container in front of you,” he continued. “If it’s a bigger container, you eat more. If somebody put it in a smaller glass or plate or bowl in front of you, you would eat less.” For what it’s worth, many large food companies, such as Coke and McDonald’s, are on the attack in the wake of the proposed ban.
The premise of the Government’s forfeiture request is that Megaupload never earned a single penny that was not criminal under U.S. law — whether, say, from a non-infringing use of its service, or from use that occurred wholly outside the United States and beyond reach of U.S. law, or even from an infringing use within the United States as to which Defendants nonetheless qualify for a statutory safe harbor or lacked requisite criminal intent.A legal motion by the founders of Megaupload • Asking for the dismissal of the case and a return of the millions of dollars seized from them, on the premise that the government did not do their due diligence, assuming that every transaction was criminal in nature (despite “substantial non-infringing uses”), and ignoring the fact that they had no jurisdiction anyway. Among the arguments in the lengthy motion: “Megaupload was a non-U.S. company whose activities mostly occurred overseas and whose users were mostly located overseas.” Will be fascinating to see what happens as a result of this motion.
After The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel endorsed Scott Walker in his recall campaign, readers responded in kind, filling up an entire page with letters criticizing the decision. You can read them here. (ht Patch’s Recall Central, via Arena of the Unwell)
I think as far as the case of Mr. Afridi is concerned, it was in accordance with Pakistani laws and by the Pakistani courts, and we need to respect each other’s legal processes.Pakistan Foreign Ministry spokesperson Moazzam Ali Khan • Discussing the sentence the country gave to Dr. Shakil Afridi for ”conspiring ‘to wage war against Pakistan or depriving it of its sovereignty,’ ‘concealing existence of a plan to wage war against Pakistan’ and ‘condemnation of the creation of the state and advocacy of abolition of its sovereignty’,” according to Pakistani newspaper Dawn. Afridi’s work running a vaccination program that doubled as a DNA-tracing program helped the U.S. find Osama bin Laden, making the decision to imprison Afridi one that has built tension between the two countries. Will the U.S. respect Pakistan’s decision?
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» And no, the U.S. isn’t happy: Previously, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she hoped to see Shakil Afridi freed, as his work helped capture a pretty bad dude. Instead, Afridi is heading to jail, a move which will likely strain relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, who are currently locked in a diplomatic battle over Afghan War supply routes. (EDIT: We apologize for the inital error in the title. Total accident. Sorry guys.)
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I’m moving back to New York in a few days. Unlike past...
OMG. I got so...
In this week’s Newsweek, a little...
Tumblr this morning. [h/t anne]
#@#$%!.tumblr.com
Here’s a hidden feature that shipped in...
Watch: PCB gets a visual shout out on GMA’s Yahoo/Tumblr...
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AdWeek requires you to share certain stories in order to finish reading them. Why would I want to share something I can’t read? And is there anything more desperate a publisher can do? Gross.
I want to talk to the evil stupid-genius that invented this.
This is slightly worse than this image we ganked last week:
Soft paywalls like these are simply terrible ideas.
» Blackberry addicts, don’t go to Fort Lee, N.J.: In what’s perhaps the first ordinance of its kind in the country, the city is aggressively taking on people who attempt to multitask while walking down the street, citing three fatal pedestrian-related accidents in 2012 so far. ”It’s a big distraction. Pedestrians aren’t watching where they are going and they are not aware,” said police chief Thomas Ripoli, whose department has handed out 117 citations since the department first started going after texters. Many residents are upset about the rule, with some saying that the ticket’s cost is too expensive and that they’re not causing a danger to others while walking down the street. What do you guys think?
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