I am not without regard for Rupert Murdoch. Capitalism rewards risk, and Murdoch has, at various times, taken huge risks (albeit with others' money) and reaped the rewards. He is also pragmatic when he needs to be: witness his interview with Reuters this week, in which he predicts a Democratic landslide in November and extends what amounts to a public invitation to Barack Obama to pop in for a cuppa.
Whether that means a change of tone on Fox News is another matter. The wingnuts still need somewhere to feed, after all. There's been some totally awesome craziness this week over Obama saying his uncle was part of the force that liberated Auschwitz at the end of World War 2. Turns out that his uncle liberated Buchenwald, which is within walking distance of Auschwitz but that's been enough for some choice winger craziness, as noted by Sadly, No.
(OTOH, I'll go with the WaPo Fact Checker's call that the real problem with Obama's statement is that it perpetuates the myth that America liberated Auschwitz and generally won the war all round.)
If marvelling at wingnut craziness is your idea of fun, allow me to recommend alicublog, which is kept by Village Voice columnist Roy Edroso. He notes Michelle Malkin's continuing self-torture over which restaurant chains support terrorism. She sort of defines unintentional hilarity.
Cursor has loads of links in reaction to the Scott McLellan book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and What's Wrong with Washington
Less impressive, Sharon Stone, who advanced the theory this week that the earthquakes in China are a karmic payback for Tibet. I'm sorry, but how fscking stupid would you have to be not to know that many of the hundreds of thousands of people killed, injured and made homeless in Sichuan province are ethnic Tibetans? She has belatedly apologised.
And that'll do. I'm trying to get my head around the MCH review of digital broadcasting regulation for my Listener column, and work up some Newsmash for next week's Media7. Speaking of which, we'll be looking at the Greg Clydesdale controversy, with a panel of (hopefully) Barbara Dreaver, Tim Pankhurst and Oscar Kightley.
If you'd like to come along (with a friend if you like) to the recording on Tuesday evening at The Classic, hit reply and let me know.
Meanwhile, make yourself useful and either grab a teatowel or post some choice links in discussion for this post. (It's Friday, so YouTube goodess is appropriate -- if you haven't done it before, just paste in the URL, the clip will embed automatically.)
Righto!
PS Congratulations to Nick Dwyer for Making Tracks on C4. We loved it in our house. The debut episode turned out to be less about the local cover versions of Shihad and Shapeshifter (although I reckon with a little re-rub both of them would be real contenders) than a music lover's authentic stroll through Brazilian street culture. Nice, really nice.