Well, needless to say I’m a bit shocked and disheartened to read about Governor Eliot Spitzer’s involvement with a prostitution ring. Actually, I’m pretty angry about that. Spitzer was definitely someone I respected (despite the fact he spells his name with only 1 “L” and 1 “T”). What I did find interesting, however, was how the New York Times filled its entire account of the matter with references and citations. Like good old fashioned NYT investigative reporting, it reads more like recipe than a story – in stark contrast to the last sex scandal they “broke.” Of course, there’s no way to compare the McCain and the Spitzer stories. But, you better believe they had to have been pretty damn sure of the sources before they went to press with this one. Sigh. Thanks a bunch Eliot.

Who am I to weigh in on this? No one in particular. But I feel I can at least point out that today’s New York Times article, titled “For McCain, Self-Confidence On Ethics Poses Its Own Risks“, is crap journalism. The article is a multi-threaded account of McCain’s past improprieties and a thinly veiled allegation of infidelity and hypocrisy. It is largely unsourced, and whatever references are cited (notably regarding the juicy stuff) are conveniently anonymous. I’m irritated by this type of page-and-a-half speculation because it severely undermines the paper’s credibility and turns it into check-stand trash. Simply because the Weekly World News went out of print doesn’t mean someone needs to take its place.

With some digging around, I have come across some interesting assertions regarding the history of the story. Hot Air points back to a Drudge Report article from December that tells of the Times mounting a McCain investigation. There’s a suggestion that The New Republic strong-armed the Times into publishing the piece by threatening to expose their “foot-dragging” on the story and the internal politics in the newsroom about whether or not to publish. Quite frankly, foot-dragging and debate about whether or not to publish doesn’t seem like news, but rather smart journalism – if you can’t back a story, keep it out of the paper until you can. But, the New York Times hates that kind of criticism. It appears that it’s the McCain camp that is accusing The New Republic of forcing the story, which I think lends merit to the theory. Regardless, this is all speculation – and I’m somewhat out of my element to speculate on such matters (plus, I don’t usually give much credence to anything Hot Air, or Drudge has to say).

All of this aside, it looks like McCain is getting taken for a bit of a ride. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t vote for him (or any Repub I’ve ever seen, for that matter). I’m more upset with the Times than I am sympathetic with their victim. This is soap opera politics at its finest, and I’m sure there are sinister goings on.

I don’t know. Thoughts? Do you think we’ll be hearing about this until November or do you think it’s no news/dead news?

UPDATE – It looks like the TNR story about the story is online. It’s an interesting read.

According to today’s Jack Myers MediaBizBuzz.com report, it appears as though Facebook is giving in to the overwhelming demand to turn “Beacon” into a true opt in program. If you’ve not been caught up in this frenzy, here’s a quick breakdown of what’s afoot and what it means to Facebookers.

Mark Zuckerberg’s social networking site, the darling child of new media, has been coming up with new ways to rake in ad dollars. One such method, called “Beacon”, was to sell advertisers the opportunity to post a user’s recent purchases on their news feed. Say you buy a book from Amazon, that purchase would appear to all your friends in Facebook…unless you opted out during checkout. You would have to opt out, of course, every time you made a purchase on any participating web site.

As you can imagine, this ruffled a few feathers in the Facebook community. There have been interesting anecdotal stories in the media about boyfriends finding out early what their girlfriends had purchased for them for Christmas. One couple broke up because the guy’s Fandango movie tickets showed up online. The girlfriend met him at the theater assuming the second ticket was for her, only to find that it was, in fact, not. All sorts of fun stuff.

MoveOn entered the fight early on by starting a Facebook group to protest the privacy invasion. Interestingly enough, it is Facebook itself which has served as the most effective protesters tool. Social networking happens to be a great way to rabble rouse – and without much effort. As of right now, the Moveon group has over 65,000 members.

So, if the Jack Myers report is indeed correct, this will be the second time that Facebook users have forced the website to give in and change their policy. At a time when consumer complaints tend to fall on deaf ears, it’s at least nice to know that Facebook eventually has to listen.

It was awful gosh darn nice of the AP/Ron Edmonds to point out clearly which person in the photo is Bush. Without that helpful little bit of information, I think most of us would be left in the dark. Thanks Yahoo! News/AP for making my life easier!

According to Reuters, Toys ‘R’ Us has just initiated a volunteer recall of 27,000 Imaginirium coloring cases. Bet you can’t guess why. Yep, that’s right – lead paint from China. It’s simply mind-boggling at this point.

It seems Chinese manufacturing is really lead-ing the way.

Wonderful news. And it’s even better that I’ve at least got half my bases covered. You guess which half. Hint: it starts with C and ends with affeine. Now, if I can just get the motivation to jog to Starbucks. Yeah, not bloody likely.

The story’s here.

So, the Simpsons results are in. Apparently, there are some nut jobs in this country who believe Groening’s Springfield is in Vermont. Vermont? Are you freakin kidding me? I mean, I guess I can see how you could confuse Vermont with Oregon. We both have our share of cows, trees and granola worshipers (maybe that’s just Oregon, I’m not too sure). But seriously. There’s no way that Maggie ever crawled the streets of Springfield, VT. Period. I could see people in Mass or Illinois showing up for the vote, but no one ever saw Vermont coming (by no one, I mean me). USA Today, I hold you responsible for trying to turn an undeniable truth into a democratic vote. You’re dead to me.

I’m depressed.

Here’s what I love about advertising: you get cool stuff. Like, the Willamette Week sent all the way out to Florida for me. We had a client in there, and now we’re on their subscriber list. And this Portland kid is on cloud nine. I’d write more loving words about Stumptown’s preeminent example of investigative journalism, quirky culture, and concert listings, but I have some reading to do.

Now, I may be a Myspace n00b, but this find did seem a bit odd. It appears that Portland’s beloved KOIN news anchor, Jeff Gianola, has a Myspace page (you want that link, dontcha? In due time.). So, this can be explained one of two ways.

1. Somebody out there is impersonating Jeff with a bogus page. Is this possible? I imagine it could be done, but you’d think it’d get reported, or blocked, or something. I mean, any news anchor would Google his name almost hourly, right?
2. Jeff really has an online persona. Plausible, until you read some of this stuff on his page and take a look at some of his “friends.”

Either way, there’s something fishy about this. Here’s some of what you’ll find:

• I’m Jeff Gianola?
• Stay classy Portland [note: he is from San Diego, so it sorta fits]
• Take that Dad…im not the failure you thought id be.
• My passion is children…not in a Jacko kind of way…more like Sally Struthers (sp). My highly acclaimed ‘Wednesday’s Child’ segment has placed hundreds (literally hundreds…no fakes) of adopted children in loving (at least on the surface) homes in the Northwest.
• Occupation:Anchorman
• Income:$150,000 to $250,000

And it just keeps going and going. Somebody, please tell me this is fake.

Oh yeah, the link.

I wrote about this same thing a while ago, and I found the same compelling argument in the Oregonian. Here’s what they wrote:

Whether illegal immigrants contribute more in taxes than they use in public services is open to debate, but here’s a general breakdown of taxes they pay and services they can receive:

Taxes: Workers pay taxes depending on how they get around the rules. Workers paid in cash pay taxes on gas, cigarettes and alcohol in Oregon, and on other consumer items in sales tax states. They pay property taxes, as a share of rent or as homeowners. If they use a Social Security number that doesn’t belong to them, they have income taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes withheld from their paycheck. If they have an Individual Tax Identification Number, they pay income taxes, but they don’t have payroll deductions for Social Security.

Services: Illegal immigrants are not eligible for food stamps, Social Security, Medicare, unemployment, or college financial aid, but they are treated in emergency rooms, and their children get a K-12 education.

So, I don’t want to hear any more of that burden on taxpayer nonsense. Hell, this stupid fence we’re building along the US-Mexico border is what I call a burden on taxpayers.