There was a witness to the White House shooter. Several, really; maybe dozens. But one, a young woman on her way to a hotel from the airport, tweeted about it. Her claims, unsubstantiated, were retweeted by a local reporter and at least one local blog. Several people (including myself) pressed her for more information, corroboration. Perhaps too many people: she soon deleted her Twitter account and pulled down a blog post she’d written.

On Interstate 70 west of Saint Louis (a dull stretch), there used to be something called “The Elvis is Alive Museum.” It was founded at some point in the late ’80s or early ’90s by Bill Beeny, an accountant and Elvis impersonator. Its simple premise: Elvis is still alive and we have the evidence that proves it.

Thursday’s debate was the 19th of the primary season. There have been over 5,800 shows produced for British and American television.

“To summarize: if you don’t like winter sports and dislike dipping bread into things, Davos doesn’t have much to recommend itself, at least in the winter.”

Several months ago, Politico reporter Ben Smith lamented that his blog at the site was being trumped by his Twitter feed. Where once people would refresh his blog for updates, now they could simply follow him on Twitter and know what he was going to post before he posted it. The blog became secondary, slower – a formalized storehouse for organized pieces of information.

Slate’s Dave Weigel noted that 2011′s box office earnings are on pace to be $1 billion below 2010′s. True to (snarky) form, he tweeted: Man, box office down roughly $1 billion from last year. bit.ly/fv9G81 Time for more shitty sequels, guys! — daveweigel (@daveweigel) December 17, 2011 Which made me wonder: is there a correlation [...]

Yesterday evening, our own Frances Martel wrote a column about the study indicating that Fox News viewers were less informed about news than those who watched other channels – and than those who watch no news at all. The title of her piece: “Left Rejoices As Poll Of 612 New Jerseyans Declares Fox News Makes People Stupid”.

I used to run political campaigns; as part of that, I commissioned polls. I have a good sense of how polling works, what it’s good for, what makes a poll valid. Martel’s implication that 612 people is an absurdly low sample size is not only erroneous, it’s a staple of those who want to cast doubt on research for political purposes. Skepticism is always warranted. It is not, however, valid to take issue with basic math.

If the email they sent earlier this week is any guide, the Associated Press is waking up to a dramatically changed and deeply jarring media landscape, one in which it’s nearly impossible for a once-leading institution to stay absolutely in front on the news.

It’s ground others have walked before. The New York Times already realized its difficult position when it was presented with one of the more biting and incisive critiques of traditional media: “Why is aged news better than real news?”

When the revolution in Libya began, many Americans, savvy to the ways of international diplomacy, raised an important point: what would happen to bit.ly? The .ly in bit.ly, after all, is the top-level domain (TLD) reflecting the country code for Libya. The country controls the TLD (though not all access to the domain); any .ly domain that’s purchased is money going to Libya.

Patti Stanger is inept primarily because she’s delusional.

The star of Bravo’s Millionaire Matchmaker, Stanger prides herself on her savvy ability to create romantic relationships from mid-air. Now in its fifth season, the show thrusts millionaires – usually men – into a roiling stew of potential mates – usually women. Patti lays down ground rules, a match is made, and all are happy.

We’d driven the entire previous day and about an hour that morning, reaching the upper rim of Ngorongoro crater while the sun was still low. We’d passed two young Maori boys, who offered to pose for pictures with us in exchange for a thousand shillings. Their cows, untended, began to stray back toward the circular village lower in the valley. At the entrance of the road down into the crater, our guide explained that armed guards patrolled the crater, a wildlife refuge, and were trained to shoot poachers on sight. Sure enough, there was just such a guard, Kalashnikov slung lazily over his shoulder, bleary-eyed, in a bulky sweater. And, there in remote Tanzania, he was wearing a knit cap with a layered N and Y approximating the Yankees logo.

Yesterday morning, Mitt Romney released a video that, in a nutshell, suggested that Rick Perry might be a dope.

It wasn’t explicit. It was just a compilation of some of Perry’s hem-ier haws from his debate performances interlaced with pundits scratching their heads and, in one instance, suggesting that Perry “really did throw up on himself.” The video ended with the tagline “Rick Perry: Ready To Lead?”

In The Awl‘s 142 tweets so far in October, the average word count, excluding URLs, is 7. The median is 6, meaning half of the tweets have 6 or more words; half, six or fewer. (@Mediaite‘s shortest was six words.)

At 12:01pm, the wagon exploded. Five hundred pounds of cast-iron sash weights were packed around a hundred pounds of TNT. When the bomb went off, triggered by a timer, the small, heavy weights became bullets that flew in every direction.

In all, thirty-eight people were killed, over a hundred forty injured. The blast left a two foot crater, flipped automobiles, killed horses; it caused $2.5 million in damage. The shrapnel created pock-marks in building facades; the offices of J. P. Morgan and Co. were all but obliterated. One of Morgan’s sons was injured.

People are — and always have been — selfish jerks. That’s indisputable. It’s not worth fighting over.

Our forefathers were oppressed and were oppressors. In the quest for glory and wealth, Europeans did horrible things to those Native Americans who had the gall to get to the New World first. Once established, Americans did more horrible things to them. I don’t say this to diminish the terrible and innovative horrors – I say it to acknowledge that people from Europe and America treated people from America and Africa as no one should ever be treated.

On East Avenue in Rochester, New York – a broad street lined by well-kept lawns during the too-brief summers; a vein of elegance running through a graying landscape – is the George Eastman House. Since shortly after the eponymous man’s death, it’s been maintained as a photography museum but the elegance of the estate overwhelms [...]

In yesterday’s Times Frank Bruni outlined “The Affliction of Comfort” – the worry that those who are taken care of will put taking care of themselves above resolving the problems of others. His essay is farmed in the context of governments making decisions about the long-term welfare of citizens from a position of safety and comfort.

The piece doesn’t deliver on the promise of its title. The affliction of comfort. The inertia of the heavy. Bruni dusts the surface of Italian politics and dips a toe into the American budget mess, but there’s deeper angst at work.

Science writer Chris Mims this morning wondered how the Solyndra investment of $535 million compared to some of the military’s biggest investments that didn’t pan out.

So I looked it up. Using this chart from the New York Times for reference, I created the chart below.

Public Enemy’s Chuck D once made the famous claim that “rap is CNN for black people” – it’s news made entertaining. In America, hip-hop and rap began as a vocalization of a culture that was not prominent, a culture with frustrations and oppressions that found voice when paired with turntables, a breakbeat and rhyme. American hip-hop was a political statement before it was an economic powerhouse.

In a recent report, NBC’s Karl Bostic indicates that this pattern has re-emerged in the Arab world. Hip-hop as an underground critique has burst into the political world, p

How certain of someone’s guilt do we need to be before we put them to death?

In eight days, the state of Georgia is slated to execute Troy Davis, convicted of killing Mark Allen MacPhail, a Savannah police officer. It’s the fourth time Davis has been slated to die. Each of the prior three times, legal issues have resulted in stays or delays. The Supreme Court has repeatedly heard – and declined to hear – arguments on the case. In the fall of 2008, Davis came within two hours of being put to death.

Last month, Mitt Romney said this to a man in Iowa: “Corporations are people, my friend.” What if Romney is right? Not in a political, corporations-are-comprised-of-people sense – but in a philosophical sense? In the sense that corporations, businesses have achieved a sort of sentience not identical to humans, but evocative? What if it’s not [...]

In May of 2009, the Times’ Deborah Solomon interviewed pollster and messaging expert Frank Luntz for her weekly “Questions” column. She challenged him immediately over the phrase “Washington Takeover” in a 28-page memo titled “The Language of Health Care.” Luntz admitted that he didn’t know if “takeover” was a correct description, which Politifact rated Luntz’s “takeover” its Lie of the Year. Though Luntz’s reputation remained unscathed.

This is either the worst video commemorating anything ever, or it’s a perfectly fine expression of a man’s feelings about an American tragedy.

A good way to figure out which is to try and remember how you feel about Herman Cain. If you like him a lot, it’s the latter. I’m indifferent towards him, so it’s the former. A fun thought experiment: what if this were President Obama singing? (Yes, that’s Cain singing.) Would that change your mind?

Michele Bachmann declared that last week’s earthquake in DC and the damage done by Irene are a message to politicians from God.

Ms. Bachmann, some questions.

Last week, Times columnist Joe Nocera asked a simple question: what is business waiting for? Why isn’t the private sector making a determined push to put people to work? He identified a few factors: the focus on short-term profits and concern about being at a competitive disadvantage; The Atlantic‘s Derek Thompson took a wonkier look at the question. This weekend, the Times ran some responses that provide more insight.