From the AP:

NASA: Money key to more space shuttle flights (AP)

Jon Stewart’s latest analysis of Glen Beck and the crazy man’s antics. And, btw, Stewart didn’t even have to try. Beck is comedy gold for the the Daily Show.

I wanted to play around with the whole tilt-shift in Photoshop technique that people have been having a lot of fun with. By adjusting the focus areas in Photoshop, you can make a photo look like a toy model set. It’s kind of a neat effect.

This one is from, as usual, the AP.

Australian study uses cat food in war on cane toad

Stunning.

Every now and then, the White House asks a news agency with a scoop to hold the story. Sometimes it’s for legitimate reasons, other times it’s for CYA reasons. Most famously was back in 2006 when the New York Times had the scoop on the wire tapping story and the Bush administration pressured the newspaper to sit on it. Which, of course, the NYT did not. Last week, the Pakistanis captured top Taliban commander Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. Because the US felt that other Taliban leaders were unaware of the capture at the time, they wanted the paper to hold on the story to prevent other people of interest from heading deeper into hiding. The NYT complied and, in an interview with the BBC, Bill Keller, executive editor of the paper, explained the decision.

Generally, it goes against journalism ethics to withhold a story (and it’s almost always bad juju to bury a story completely). It’s interesting to hear about what certain news organisations  consider to be compelling cases and how they make those judgments.

A very interesting read. Definitely worth checking out.

New York Times Chief Explains Baradar News Delay

This sentence is the best lede sentence I’ve read in quite some time (from the AP):

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – The XXI Olympic Winter Gamesbegin Friday, and that’s about the only thing certain about them.

So, I’ve been working hard at it, and I’ve finally gotten my photography site off the ground – a few days ago, actually. I’ve just been so busy with it, that I haven’t had a chance to notify all of you dear readers yet.

Anywho, it’s a totally rad, completely awesome, one-of-a-kind, beautiful site, if I may say so myself. Check it out: asburyphoto.com.

So, here’s what I want to know. How does the money work between ACS and the City and County of Denver. Because, when I got my photo taken for speeding (10mph over, btw), the radar van seemed to be raking in the violations. It’s like printing money. Is it legal? Well, in 2002, the Denver County court ruled that it was illegal to have a non-law enforcement officer issue citations which rendered the photo radar vans at odds with the law. This was upheld by the state court. I’m not sure what’s happened between now and then, but I do know the revised Colorado statute 42-4-110.5 seems to now allow this.

ACS was the company the county contracted photo-radar out to before the practice was halted in 2002, and it seems to be the company the county is once again using.

The fines are capped at $40 (for a normal speeding violation, school and construction zones are rightfully higher). How much of that money does ACS keep, and how much does Denver keep? That’s what I want to know. Because as far as I’m concerned, ACS has no interest in my personal safety and my safe driving. Actually, I take that back on the last part. I would hazard to guess they are quite interested in me driving over the speed limit. As is Denver, by all calculations. The ridiculous revenue this scheme must bring would seem irresistible to any government official (especially one who doesn’t have the ability or the political will to pay for a city’s budget through, uh, you know, taxes).

I pulled this off of a no-longer available ACS website (a subpage on the www.cite-web.com domain which is where violators are directed to pay their fine, with a 2.5% administrative fee, of course). The website itself was cached through Google:

[Read more]