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John McCain

Television

Is John McCain’s Cable à la Carte Bill Secretly Terrible?

By Jason Bailey on

Talk about hitting on a winning strategy five years too late. Forget the Alaska Governor Who Must Not Be Named — if John McCain was looking for a game-changer back in 2008, he should’ve floated the Television Consumer Freedom Act. The new legislation, which McCain introduced Thursday, aims to let cable customers select their lineups à la carte, getting only the channels they want, and eschewing the expensive ones they never watch. It would change the way the television business operates, and it could be a boon for the viewer. Maybe. … Read More

Web

What’s On at Flavorpill: The Links That Made the Rounds In Our Office

By Caroline Stanley on

Today at Flavorpill, we felt kind of depressed after watching the cast of Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory reunite on the Today Show, 40 years later. We thought that Ed Harris made a pretty decent John McCain in this still from HBO’s upcoming film Game Change. We were impressed by… Read More

Web

The Morning’s Top 5 Cultural Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

1. It’s D-Day. As in Digital TV transition. The Live Feed will be tracking the mayhem here, but let it be known that my sister is watching the Today Show as I type this using her old rabbit ears.

2. For some reason John McCain feels like he needs to defend Sarah Palin from… Read More

Politics

A Brief Timeline of “Over-the-Line” Palin Outbursts

By Andy Phillips on

Never mind that McCain once said, “”Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno.” Republicans have decided that jokes about their kids aren’t OK (to be fair, Obama agrees). As such, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s recent response to a Letterman quip about her daughter was barbed and undeniably inflamed (despite not knowing the difference between being “knocked up” and sexually assaulted). While the nature of the joke itself is up for debate depending of which daughter you decide it was referring to, one can’t help but wonder: after months upon months as a figure of constant public ridicule, shouldn’t Palin have developed a thicker skin? After the jump, a selected timeline of other Palin-related incidents that have begged apologies from public figures. … Read More

Web

You Are Now Following John McCain on Twitter

By Fernanda Diaz on

He’s only about a year late, but Senator John McCain is finally where all the cool kids are. Twitter, of course. To our surprise, his updates have been surprisingly interesting to read — almost too entertaining, his “Happy Birthday Joe Lieberman” and “80,000 strong…!!” tweets sounding too good to not be by a twitter impostor. But it seems that it’s really him, and he’s all up in his lingo, using “ICYMI” and letting us know he’s figured out how to update from his BlackBerry.

His latest venture, a Top 10 list of the “TOP TEN PORKIEST PROJECTS in the Omnibus Spending bill the Congress is about to pass” is showing us he’s gotten the point of this whole Twitter thing better than most of our friends. Just when we were about to give up on Twitter, it seems like the voyeurism makes a lot more sense when it’s letting us connect with people we never thought we’d actually want to know about five times a day (Srsly). After the jump, our favorites.

… Read More

Books

Big Brother Book Club: From Victor Hugo to David Sedaris

By Angelina Venezia on

Occasionally when we’re on the 1 scoping out all of your reads, there’s a title that we just can’t see no matter how much we squint or how long we wait for a page turn, or train lurch that shifts the book ever so slightly. We’re intrigued and we cra buy generic viagra

ne our necks (as inconspicuously as possible) in hopes of seeing it. We wonder if people are starting to notice.

This morning, there was a particularly frustrating lady sitting diagonally from us with a behemoth of a library book between her hands. There was a dead white guy on the cover. MARK TWAIN? No. EDGAR ALLAN POE? No. Blast! We didn’t recognize the face, and wow was the protective, plastic covering reflective, making it even harder to make out what the tiny black font said.

As the train screeched to a stop at 18th Street, and the lady closed the book and stood up to take her leave, we managed to catch the fine print as she walked past and waited for the door to open. VICTOR HUGO! Mystery solved. A quick Amazon search confirmed that the cover was in fact that of Modern Library’s LES MISERABLES. We hope you appreciate our dedicated detective work. … Read More

Film

Creative People Say The Darndest Things: Paul Rudd, M.I.A., Elisabeth Moss, David Lang and Doug Wheeler

By Caroline Stanley on

“…they asked me if I would want to write it. I was shocked. I’m sure they were confusing me with PAUL RUDNICK, someone who’s actually written something. Or PAUL RODRIGUEZ. I kind of have a MILLION TO JUAN feeling about me.” PAUL RUDD on becoming involved with the writing on ROLE MODELS [The Onion]

“Me and Blaqstarr found the image at the end from a JOY DIVISION video and thought about the election and thats how people want you to see the world , black/ white , good/ evil, jesus/devil for you the words are Obama vs McCain for me its terror vs genocide simple maths so we put it on at the end to show how far we’ve gone and how far we’ve come, i have to start staying at home more because i dont think i can fit through my front door anymore but i want this to do the traveling for me.” – a blog post from a very pregnant M.I.A. on the video for “S.U.S. (Save UR Soul)” [Boing Boing] … Read More

Television

Our “Who Will Mock Barack?” Question Answered Much Faster Than We Anticipated

By Caroline Stanley on

Whe we asked we weren’t expecting such a quick response.

Leave it to a proven Republican favorite like SOUTH PARK to step up to the plate while most of the country was still nursing their celebratory hangovers — TREY PARKER and MATT STONE must have pulled an all-nighter as the… Read More

Books

FW Exclusive: Did Poor Word Choice Kill John McCain’s Chances?

By Caroline Stanley on

“Maverick” – it’s a word that you’ve probably had to retire from personal use over the past few months.

But did you realize that JOHN MCCAIN’s moniker comes from the surname of a Boston family known for their progressive stance on the rights of indentured servants back in the 1600s?

What, you thought TOM CRUISE coined the word as his nickname in TOP GUN? Or are you like us and its mention always reminds you of that bad JODIE FOSTER Western?

In a tight race where many have already called a winner, could it be that identifying yourself with the wrong word ultimately led to your downfall?

JESSE SHEIDLOWER, Editor-at-Large of the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY weighs in after the jump. … Read More

Web

Watercooler Cheatsheet – FW’s Roundup of The Day’s Most Viral News Stories

By Caroline Stanley on

Stretching: The Truth by GRETCHEN REYNOLDS – You know those annoying stretches they made you do back in Phys Ed? They might actually make you weaker. [NYT]

Palin Prank Call: Canadian Comedy Duo Convinces Palin She’s Talking To Sarkozy by staff – A Canadian comedy duo convinced SARAH PALIN that they were French President… Read More