From The New York Times: Panic in Georgia After a Mock News Broadcast

An independent television station in the republic of Georgia panicked the populous by running a satirical “mocumentary” depicting a Russian invasion, drawing comparisons to Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds” broadcast. Everything old is new again…

From The New York Times’ Media Decoder Blog: How the Letterman-Oprah-Leno Super Bowl Ad Came Together

Ok, ok, so far, my favorite Super Bowl advertisement. However, I haven’t yet had the chance to cut that annoying sports thing out of the recording so I can watch all of the commercials as they were meant to be enjoyed.

In an apparent attempt to get their Live365 radio station canceled, the hosts of Radio Once More, Ken Stockinger and Neal Ellis, have invited Your Obedient Servant and the Worst Voice in Internet Audio to guest on their program this Friday evening, January 22nd, at 9:00pm Eastern Standard Time, 6:00pm in the west (and in Baltimore it’ll be 9:42).

Please join us at that time, when we will attempt to answer the question, “What the heck is he doing here?” Check out http://www.radiooncemore.com/ for complete details and to listen in.

From the New York Times’ TV Watch: Are the Days of Leno, Letterman and O’Brien as Polite Hosts Over?

Interesting article, this…from it: “The Leno-O’Brien fracas is both shocking — an explosion of incivility that burns through late-night bonhomie — and also reassuring. It turns out that the cliché that comics are angry, bitter people deep down is true.”

From The New York Times: Op-Ed Columnist - The Biggest Loser

From this opinion piece by Maureen Dowd: “In a town where nobody makes less than they’re worth, and most people pull in an obscene amount more, there has been a single topic of discussion: How does Jeff Zucker keep rising and rising while the fortunes of NBC keep falling and falling?”

Morons, I tell you. Morons.

From The New York Times: Editorial - Twitter Tapping

From the article: “The government is increasingly monitoring Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites for tax delinquents, copyright infringers and political protesters. A public interest group has filed a lawsuit to learn more about this monitoring, in the hope of starting a national discussion and modifying privacy laws as necessary for the online era.”

That “friend” request might be from someone who wants to monitor you for a different reason altogether…

From The New York Times: Gene Barry, Who Portrayed Suave Lawmen on TV, Dies at 90

From the article: “Gene Barry, who portrayed debonair lawmen on television but whose career of more than 60 years ranged from song and dance on Broadway to science fiction, died Wednesday in Woodland Hills, Calif. He was 90 and lived in Beverly Hills until about a year ago.”

He portrayed many roles, but for me he will always be Amos Burke.

From the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press: Public barred from federal program on government openness

From the article: “The public and the news media are barred from attending a workshop designed to teach federal employees about a new government office that resolves open records disputes, The Associated Press reports.”

Dear Feds; Thank you for demonstrating once again the meaning of irony. Love, me.

We’re currently experiencing a BOTNET dictionary attack on the mail server…it’s been going on for a few days now, and I’m getting a little weary of it. So I’ve shut down the mail server for a bit; if you’ve sent mail to the Internet OTR Digest or to me, you may get a temporary error. Don’t worry, any well-behaved mail server should handle it and queue your mail for later delivery. With luck, the infected machines will move on to another target.

It’s frustrating, though…why don’t people keep their antivirus software up-to-date so those of us who are “innocents” don’t have to deal with their garbage?

From ZeroPaid: Verizon to Forward Warnings from RIAA, MPAA

From the article: “It’s an about face for Verizon who once fought the RIAA all the way to the Supreme Court to protect the privacy and free speech of its customers.”

From The New York Times: Cuomo Files Antitrust Suit Against Intel

From the article: “Following the lead of foreign regulators, New York’s attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, filed a federal antitrust lawsuit Wednesday against Intel, the world’s largest chip maker.”

The publicity-whore is at it again. Mr. Cuomo is pulling yet another stunt; much like his recently giving ISPs cover to eliminate their USENET services and lower value for customers in the name of “saving the children,” this lawsuit isn’t his place to file, but does give him massive headlines. My guess is this is all carefully and cynically orchestrated to generate publicity for future political races. You can bet I’ll remember this nonsense if he ever runs for national office, though not the way he hopes…

From TorrentFreak: MPAA Propaganda Hits 60 Minutes

From the article: “The MPAA scored a victory last night when millions of people tuned in to CBS’s 60 Minutes. The ‘investigative’ news magazine ran a propaganda piece on movie piracy yesterday, allowing the MPAA to insinuate once again that organized crime and BitTorrent go hand in hand.”

FWIW, TorrentFreak does its own propagandizing, so take its take with the same grain of salt you should give to the 60 Minutes piece. That said, I justify posting this link as a balance to last night’s skewed report.

David Broder of The Washington Post is one of the newsmen I respect the most; I look forward to his weekly visits to The Bob Edwards Show, and consider it a required weekly political briefing. Ok, I’d rather it were still on Monday mornings preparing me for the week ahead instead of Fridays when everyone else is reviewing the week, but this is absolutely required listening for me.

However this morning on the show, Mr. Broder was flat-out wrong, and I simply cannot silently let it go. When discussing Gov. Deval Patrick’s interim appointment of Paul G. Kirk Jr. to the late Sen. Edward Kennedy’s Senate seat, he mentioned Kirk’s role as one of the leaders of the Commission on Presidential Debates, praising the Commission and Kirk for holding those debates, saying the Commission, “works.”

I suppose it works just fine if you’re a major-party presidential candidate. It works even better if you are a leader of one of the two main political parties, since the Commission controls the debates exclusively for those parties. If you’re an American citizen, however, the Commission doesn’t “work” at all for you, since its sole purpose for existence is to exclude anyone who is not a candidate for one of the two main political parties and to, in effect, hijack one of the most important arenas used by the American people to determine their vote. Indeed, according to a contemporary story in the New York Times from February 19, 1987 covering the announcement of the commission’s creation, the lauded now-Senator Kirk, “…was less equivocal, saying he personally believed the panel should exclude third-party candidates from the debates.” How exactly can that attitude “work” for the American people?

I have maintained for decades that the major news organizations should boycott these “debates,” not participate in them as usually-respected newspeople like Jim Lehrer and Gwen Ifill have, relegating their airing to Animal Planet and HGTV. The major news organizations should instead align themselves with a non-partisan group (possibly The League of Women Voters, but there are other equally-non-partisan groups available) and hold their own independent debate, ignoring completely the choreographed “debates” provided by the Commission. I know, the candidates always make demands as conditions of their participation, but you can call Ted Koppel and ask him how to handle that - he held his own “debate” on Nightline back in 1988 and invited both George H. W. Bush and Michael Dukakis. When Vice President Bush declined to accept, Gov. Dukakis received all the time…this, it seems to me, is enough guarantee for complete participation. And you can be certain any legitimate third-party candidate would gleefully appear, doubly-so if the major candidates chose not to do so. What if no one shows up, you ask? Run two hours of news stories from the campaign trail, with the image of empty podiums in one corner to remind the American public that the candidates don’t have the guts to engage in a legitimate, non-party-controlled debate.

I’m only sorry that one of my favorite newsmen, David Broder, “drank the Kool-Aid” on this one and actually believes this bogus commission serves anyone’s interest other than the political parties that exert their iron-fisted control over this important process. I usually soak in everything this newsman has to say, but he’s dead wrong on this one.

From the New York Times: Mary Travers Of Peter, Paul and Mary Dies.

(*sigh*)

From CNN: Guitar, studio wizard Les Paul dies at 94

From the obit: “Les Paul, whose innovations with the electric guitar and studio technology made him one of the most important figures in recorded music, has died, according to a statement from his publicists. Paul was 94.”

From The New York Times: Les Paul, Guitar Innovator, Dies at 94

As I mentioned before, everyone has a Les Paul story, and here’s mine; A few years ago, Mr. Paul was a guest of the Friends of Old-Time Radio Convention at one of the more…er…eclectic closing performances. He spoke for a bit, answered some pre-set questions, and accepted our applause. After the evening’s performances finally ended, I sought him out…I didn’t take anything for him to sign, I just wanted to thank him for taking the time out of his schedule to visit with us, and frankly I wanted to meet the guy, someone I’d appreciated for pretty much my entire lifetime, and particularly since I learned to play guitar after losing a finger on my left hand. I found him, and did so…while shaking his hand across a table, I held it for just a moment longer than customary (men know what I’m talking about), looked him in the eye and said, “I wonder if a lick will rub off?”

You can hear his interview with Bob Edwards from April, 2008 at the BobEdwards.Info website.

From the New York Times: Disney Takes Web Surfers to the Lab to See Which Ads Work

From the article: “The goal, quite simply, is to increase ad revenue by offering skittish clients serious research about what works and what does not in new media, said Peter Seymour, the unit’s executive vice president for strategy and research.”

If you want a chilling look at how “science” is being corrupted to force you to purchase things you can’t afford, read this article. And be afraid.

From the AP via Yahoo: Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashes into Wis. home

From the article: “Police said the driver was trying to turn the Wienermobile around in the driveway and thought she was moving in reverse. But she instead went forward and hit the home. It sat in the driveway as if it were stuck in the garage Friday afternoon.”

A few years ago, we bumped into a Wienermobile, only not like this - we were just surprised to find one where we were vacationing. Prescient comments, though, about the carnage of running into the garage…

From The New York Times: Google Plans to Introduce a PC Operating System

From the article: “In a direct challenge to Microsoft, Google announced late Tuesday that it is developing an operating system for PCs based on its Chrome Web browser.”

Now there’s a terrifying thought…Google is apparently not satisfied watching everything you do on the Web, now it wants to watch you as you work on the desktop, too. *shudder*

From the New York Times: Music Labels Reach Royalty Deal With Online Stations

Of course, artists don’t get any of this windfall…only the major studios will receive this ransom payment. Still, as long as Slacker Radio lasts for a few more months, I should be able to legally record enough music to last me the rest of my life, so screw the labels.

From The CNN Wire: Actor Karl Malden dead at 97, manager says

Actor Karl Malden died Wednesday at age 97, his manager said. Links to obits will be added once they are posted. Anyone know if Mr. Malden had any OTR credits?

Edit: New York Times Obit.
CNN Obit.