Liberal Talk Radio

[Fear not, no real spoilers to follow...]
In an interview with Salon, The Wire creator David Simon defends himself against the complaint that the fifth season of the show doesn’t address the role of the internet in the decline of newspapers:
If you’re saying that there needed to be scenes of the Internet interacting with journalism [...]

Jamal Simmons points out the similarities between an Obama-McCain election and the Santos-Vinick campaign from Season 7 of The West Wing:
Then there is Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is perfectly filling the role Alan Alda played, Arnold Vinick, the older maverick Republican senator from the West (California in the show). Due to his willingness [...]

Christopher Orr, the TNR movie critic, has his year-end awards out, and they’re hilarious. A sampling:
The Warfare Is Not the Slightest Bit Homoerotic Award:
300
The It’s Fun to Be Naked Award:
Lady Chatterley
The …Except When Guys Are Trying to Knife You In the Sauna Award:
Eastern Promises
Neurotic Siblings Whom I’d Nonetheless Welcome Into My Family:
Philip Seymour Hoffman [...]

I have to say that I didn’t tear up or choke back anything in the final scenes of Juno, like A.O. Scott says he did; the film was too glib and slick to be believable — not to mention unfunny (not that it was unfunny, but it wasn’t consistently humorous, just grating like someone who [...]

Jonathan Golob at Slog points out that The Wire is Barack Obama’s favorite TV show, and proceeds to explain why it’s such a great choice for a presidential candidate:
No character is left unblemished. Institutions are at best viewed as noble failures (the Stevedores Union) and more often as a destructive force. Obama’s declaration [...]

Not as good as 2 Girls 1 Cup “reactions” but close. Darn close.

The Norwegian diaspora in the upper Midwest loses a point of pride when Norway closes its consulate in Minneapolis.
But give it to the Norwegians themselves for an underwhelming, if charming, show of class:
Wegger Christian Strommen, the recently appointed Norwegian ambassador, said no one was abandoning the Midwest.
“We’re not going to leave,” Mr. Strommen said in [...]

Once gain, science shows that I am undoubtedly left-handed.

Slate’s collection of Peanuts strips and exerpts from the new Schultz autobiography are pretty awesome.
But even more amazing is the fact that Schultz was earning $90K/year … by 1957, and upwards of $40M/year by the 1990s. Unbelievable.

Working my way through the first season of Friday Night Lights, it occurs to me that shows about high school have a big problem. You’ve got to make the kids old enough to do stuff and get in trouble and maybe even get busy, so they have to be in late high school. [...]