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Industry reps offer $2 trillion in health savings (AP)
Top representatives of the health care industry plan to offer $2 trillion in cost reductions over 10 years in a bid to help pass President Barack Obama’s health overhaul, a source familiar with the negotiations said Sunday. Industry officials representing health insurers, hospitals, doctors, drug makers and a major labor union plan to be at White House on Monday to present the offer.
Lambert, at Corrente, lets the cat out of the bag:
Insurance proposal:    $200,000,000,000 a year; $2,000,000,000,000 over 10 years
Single payer:                $350,000,000,000 a year; $3,500,000,000,000 over 10 years
The difference? Profits for the insurance companies is a big part of it. Can it really be the position of the insurance industry that they have a RIGHT to profit from our illnesses?

Health care cost cuts could kick-start reform (AP)
The industry groups are trying to get on the administration bandwagon for expanded coverage now in the hope they can steer Congress away from legislation that would restrict their profitability in future years… There’s a sense among some of the groups that now may be the best time to act before public opinion, fueled by anger over costs, turns against them.

Harry, Louise and Barack (by Paul Krugman)
Before we start celebrating, however, we have to ask the obvious question. Is this gift a Trojan horse? After all, several of the organizations that sent that letter have in the past been major villains when it comes to health care policy… I would strongly urge the Obama administration to hang tough in the bargaining ahead. In particular, AHIP will surely try to use the good will created by its stance on cost control to kill an important part of health reform: giving Americans the choice of buying into a public insurance plan as an alternative to private insurers. The administration should not give in on this point.

But let me not be too negative. The fact that the medical-industrial complex is trying to shape health care reform rather than block it is a tremendously good omen… And serious cost control would change everything, not just for health care, but for America’s fiscal future. As [Budged Director Peter] Orszag has emphasized, rising health care costs are the main reason long-run budget projections look so grim. Slow the rate at which those costs rise, and the future will look far brighter. I still won’t count my health care chickens until they’re hatched. But this is some of the best policy news I’ve heard in a long time.

Society for the Preservation of Insurance Company Profits:
Ex-Hospital CEO Battles Reform Effort (Washington Post)
The television ads that began airing last week feature horror stories from Canada and the United Kingdom: Patients who allegedly suffered long waits for surgeries, couldn’t get the drugs they needed, or had to come to the United States for treatment. “Before government rushes to overhaul health care, listen to those who already have government-run health care,” intones Rick Scott, founder of a group called Conservatives for Patients’ Rights. “Tell Congress to listen, too.”

Congress Plans Incentives for Healthy Habits (New York Times)
Congress is seriously considering proposals to provide tax credits or other subsidies to employers who offer wellness programs that meet federal criteria. In addition, lawmakers said they would make it easier for employers to use financial rewards or penalties to promote healthy behavior among employees. Two Democratic senators working on comprehensive health legislation, Max Baucus of Montana, the chairman of the Finance Committee, and Tom Harkin of Iowa, have taken the lead in devising such incentives. “Prevention and wellness should be a centerpiece of health care reform,” said Mr. Harkin, who regularly climbs the stairs to his seventh-floor office on Capitol Hill.

The White House agrees. One of President Obama’s eight principles for health legislation is that it must “invest in prevention and wellness,” a goal espoused in almost identical words by Republican senators like John Cornyn of Texas and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah.
We definitely need to start, as a nation, putting promoting health at least on an equal footing with fighting disease.

Why does Obama want your medical records? (by Joseph Cannon at Cannonfire)
James Bovard wants to alert you to another the Obama administration hopes to spy on you: Computerized medical records… One of the goals for the new federally subsidized computers is to create systems able “to exchange electronic health information with, and integrate such information from other sources.” This is a huge step towards a national database. Goodbye doctor/patient confidentiality. Dubya was content with tapping your phone without a warrant; now Obama wants to take matters further.

Medical data does not simply track the number of times a person went to their doctor seeking a cure for a runny nose or stubbed toe. Medical records could include details on long-ago abortions, impotence or sexually transmitted diseases, anti-depressants and details of breakdowns, or HIV Positive status.
My comment: As an IT professional, I have to say that standardization of medical records makes sense for reducing cost and improving outcomes, not to mention the benefit of having a huge database for obtaining information based on statistical data. The ability to determine the effectiveness over time of certain medications, foods, food supplements, exercise regimens, and so on, controlling for a multitude of variables, has enormous potential for relieving human suffering and helping people live healthier longer.

My biggest objection to the medical records deal is that it will be touted as “change” and “reform” and used as an excuse to keep the same bloated, insurance profit driven system we have now. Isn’t that what they’re doing with the financial system?

Administration Plans to Strengthen Antitrust Rules (New York Times)
President Obama’s top antitrust official this week plans to restore an aggressive enforcement policy against corporations that use their market dominance to elbow out competitors or to keep them from gaining market share. The new enforcement policy would reverse the Bush administration’s approach, which strongly favored defendants against antitrust claims… The head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, Christine A. Varney, is to announce the policy reversal… Ms. Varney is expected to say that the administration rejects the impulse to go easy on antitrust enforcement during weak economic times. She will assert instead that severe recessions can provide dangerous incentives for large and dominating companies to engage in predatory behavior that harms consumers and weakens competition…

Ms. Varney is expected to say that the Obama administration will be guided by the view that it was a major mistake during the outset of the Great Depression to relax antitrust enforcement, only to try to catch up and become more vigorous later. She will say the mistake enabled many large companies to engage in pricing, wage and collusive practices that harmed consumers and took years to reverse. While Ms. Varney is not expected to mention any specific companies or industries…, she is aiming at agriculture, energy, health care, technology and telecommunications companies. She may also be reviewing the conduct of some in the financial services industry.
Excellent. But WILL the financial services industry be included?

Good Lord (Taunter Media, thanks to Lambert at Corrente)
“The Federal Reserve significantly scaled back the size of the capital hole facing some of the nation’s biggest banks shortly before concluding its stress tests, following two weeks of intense bargaining…” What kind of regulator negotiates its findings with the company it regulates?… What if a company had $50bn in revenue and claimed to have $51bn?  Folks go to jail for that sort of thing.  They sure as hell don’t get to tell the SEC “well, it would look better if it were $51bn, and it really helps our share price, and someday we’ll do $51bn, so why not now?”…

What kind of government are we running?  We completely trample a few hedge funds that have the law on their side but get crosswise with the UAW.  We completely trample the law when a bank asks for it, or AIG holds itself hostage.  Dubya was supposed to be incompetent and corrupt; he was the Warren Harding that blows through DC every so often.  But Obama has, if anything, shown less respect for the rule of law.

“The Greatest Boondoggle in History”: Banks Buoyed at Taxpayers’ Expense (by Aaron Task at Tech Ticker, Yahoo Finance)
Bank stocks soared Friday, including Wells Fargo and Morgan Stanley, which sold shares a discounts of more than 10% below Thursday’s close… While much of the focus is on the stress tests and banks’ efforts to raise cash, the real story is Geithner’s Public-Private Investment Program (PPIP), says William Black, an Associate Professor of Economics and Law at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. The PPIP is the “greatest boondoggle in the history of the world,” says Black, a former bank regulator who was counsel to the Federal Home Loan Bank Board during the S&L crisis. As occurred during the S&L era, Black says the PPIP will allow banks to exchange “trash for cash” and turn “real losses into faulty gains.”

If the goal of Tim Geithner and other regulators was “to rip off the American taxpayer for the benefit of the least-deserving wealthiest people you can imagine, well – mission accomplished,” Black says.

There’s Work to Be Done, but Congress Opts Out (by Tyler Cowen at Economic View, New York Times, thanks to Economist’s View)
The longer the financial crisis runs, the more policy makers at the Treasury, the White House and the Federal Reserve are working around Congress rather than with it. It’s not that anyone is behaving illegally or unconstitutionally, but rather that Congress seems to want to be circumvented and to delegate more power to the executive branch as well as to the Fed, at least temporarily. While Congressional leaders are consulted on the major policies, Congress is keeping its distance, perhaps to minimize voter outrage. This way, Congress can claim credit if a recovery comes, but deny responsibility if the price tag ends up higher than advertised or if banks seem to be receiving unfair benefits from the government…

Just as the Bush administration brought a growth of executive power in foreign policy and surveillance, so executive power has grown when it comes to economic policy; that development spans the administrations of both Mr. Obama and George W. Bush.

Do Obama’s Private Promises on Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Matter? (by Steve Clemons at the Washington Note)
Second Lietenant Sandy Tsao is being discharged from the military for informing her chain of command that she is gay… Remarkably, Sandy Tsao received the letter from Obama [below]. Handwritten, Barack Obama’s letter reads: “Sandy – Thanks for the wonderful and thoughtful letter. It is because of outstanding Americans like you that I committed to changing our current policy. Although it will take some time to complete (partly because it needs Congressional action) I intend to fulfill my commitment. — Barack Obama”

Obama’s administration has been silent on the expansion of same sex marriage — and his White House team has in an Orwellian, image-shifting way softened the language on the president’s website about Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. The Rick Warren inaugural invocation still rankles.

Guantanamo judge sets hearing on detainee’s torture claims (McClatchy)
The chief of the military commissions at Guantanamo has spurned a defense request for delay and ordered a military commission to go forward on May 27 that will address the issue of torture.

Burris Has Not Ruled Out Running (Political Wire)
Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL) told The Hill he would like to keep his seat in the U.S. Senate, “but will make a formal decision whether to seek reelection in the next few weeks based on his ability to raise money for a campaign.” Said Burris: “I’m moving into a phase now where I will be talking to people and assessing the opportunities in terms of my ability to raise the funds and stay here.” However, Democrats have signaled they may not want Burris to come back and polls have him running behind nearly every potential challenger.

Kennedy May Be Strongest for Senate in Illinois (Political Wire)
The Chicago Sun Times says White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel “is privately telling folks Chris Kennedy — if he runs — may potentially be the strongest candidate for the U.S. Senate seat once occupied by Barack Obama.” “Kennedy, who runs the Merchandise Mart and is the son of the late U.S. Sen. Bobby Kennedy, is weighing his options. But top Dems are predicting Kennedy is going to run.”
What? Stronger than Bill Daley?

Schumer Tries to Block Primary for Gillibrand (Political Wire)
The New York Times says Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is working hard to avoid a primary for Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) next year. In the process, he is “surprising and angering her rivals in the party.” Said Schumer at a recent fundraisier: “There is not going to be a primary!” “Longtime advisers to Mr. Schumer said that he likes the fact that Ms. Gillibrand is open to his guidance and is deferential… In addition, Mr. Schumer — who close associates say harbors ambitions to someday be the Senate majority leader — has elevated his profile by helping his party pull off a string of Senate victories, and he feels personally responsible for blocking Republicans from capturing a seat in his state.”

‘Specter For The Cure’ Cancer Website, Really Political Fundraising Tool (TPMDC)
Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA)–two time survivor of Hodgkins disease–is no stranger to cancer, cancer awareness, and cancer research funding. But he’s using his hard earned credibility as a national spokesperson on the issue to fight the disease in a roundabout way. He’s touting–and raising money from–a website called specterforthecure.com, which he describes as “a bold new initiative to reform our government’s medical research efforts, cut red tape and unstrangle the hope for accelerated cures.” But the money he’s raising isn’t funding research grants, or advocacy, or treatment for patients who can’t afford it. It’s funding the Senate re-election campaign of one Arlen Specter. 

Cheney Has “No Regrets” Over Interrogation Policies, War On Terror (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
Former Vice President Dick Cheney said on Sunday, that he had no regrets about the course of actions he and the Bush administration pursued when it came to interrogating suspected terrorists or, more broadly, waging the war on terror. “No regrets,” Cheney declared during an appearance on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “I think it was absolutely the right thing to do. I am convinced, absolutely convinced, that we saved thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives.”
Click through to watch the video.

Cheney May Be Willing To Testify Under Oath About Torture Program (Think Progress)
Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Vice President Cheney vigorously defended the Bush administration’s torture policies and his belief that by rejecting them, President Obama is raising “the risk to the American people of another attack.” Cheney said that the Bush administration’s interrogation policies will one day be viewed as “one of the great success stories of American intelligence.” When host Bob Schieffer asked Cheney whether he would be willing to testify to Congress under oath, Cheney initially hedged, but then indicated that he would be willing to do so.
DO NOT hold your breath waiting for this to happen.

McCain Agrees With Cheney: GOP Shouldn’t “Moderate” (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
The soul-searching of the Republican Party has boiled down to a rather simplistic question: to moderate or not to moderate. On Sunday, the man who led the GOP in the 2008 election — Sen. John McCain — came down on the side of the latter, telling ABC’s “This Week” that, like Dick Cheney, he did not “want to moderate.” The remarks, certain to be trumpeted by Democratic opponents, come at a time when even members of McCain’s campaign staff and family are calling for a modernized Republican Party.
Click through to watch the video.

Exclusive: DNC Ad Hits “The New GOP” Sunday Show Guests (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
As expected, Democrats pounced Sunday night on the Republican Party for trotting out a set of Sunday talk-show surrogates who didn’t exactly project political resurgence. In a Web ad provided to the Huffington Post, the Democratic National Committee pointed to Dick Cheney, John McCain and Newt Gingrich’s appearances on the talk-show circuit earlier in the day as the latest example of a party devoid of new ideas or faces.
Why aren’t Democrats spending money to promote Democratic ideals, instead of spending money on trying to destroy a brand that the brand’s owners may have already destroyed? Click through to watch the video.

Steele Calls GOP Base Bigoted, Says They ‘Rejected’ Romney Because They Have ‘Issues With Mormonism’ (Think Progress)
While guest-hosting Bill Bennett’s radio show [Friday, RNC Chairman Michael] Steele debated a caller who thought Romney could have beat Obama if Democrats and the New York Times hadn’t “co-opted” the GOP primaries. Steele insisted, however, that Romney couldn’t have won because the GOP based “rejected Mitt because it had issues with Mormonism”.

Edwards Staffers Planned to “Bring Down” Campaign (Political Wire)
George Stephanopoulos reports that by late December 2007 several people in John Edwards’ inner circle began to think that rumors he had an affair were true. “Several of them had gotten together and devised a ‘doomsday’ strategy of sorts. Basically, if it looked like Edwards was going to win the Democratic Party nomination, they were going to sabotage his campaign, several former Edwards’ staffers have told me. They said they were Democrats first, and if it looked like Edwards was going to become the nominee, they were going to bring down the campaign.”

Edwards’ Staff Had a Doomsday Strategy (by Alegre)
A friend raised an interesting question this afternoon… if they were ready to scuttle the campaign, why in the hell did they continue with what they knew was a charade?  Why keep asking people for money and votes?  Why keep attacking Hillary… Oh wait – I think I figured out a possible reason here.  If they kept in the race as long as possible they could keep attacking Hillary and siphon off money – and votes – that  probably would have gone to her. He stayed in just long enough to do some damage to her candidacy and kept money and votes from going to her in the early states like Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina (which was just 4 days before he dropped out).  These early wins for BHO in Iowa and South Carolina put him in a great position for Tsunami Tuesday.  If Edwards had dropped out in December when this story first broke, we would have had a whole different ball game – of that I have no doubt.

Richardson’s Fundraiser Given Immunity (Political Wire)
Joe Monahan reports New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson’s (D) longtime fund-raiser, Amanda Cooper, has been given immunity by prosecutors as they continue their wide-ranging investigation of Richardson’s fundraising from firms that did business with the state. Adding to the political drama: Cooper is the step-daughter of Sen. Tom Udall (D-NM).

Free cars for poor fuel road rage (Boston Herald)
Gov. Deval Patrick’s free wheels for welfare recipients program is revving up despite the stalled economy, as the keys to donated cars loaded with state-funded insurance, repairs and even AAA membership are handed out to get them to work. But the program – fueled by a funding boost despite the state’s fiscal crash – allows those who end up back on welfare to keep the cars anyway…

The program, which started in 2006, distributes cars donated by non-profit charities such as Good News Garage, a Lutheran charity, which also does the repair work on the car and bills the state. [DTA Commissioner Julia] Kehoe defended the program, saying the state breaks even by cutting welfare payments to the family – about $6,000 a year. But Kehoe admitted about 20 percent of those who received a car ended up back on welfare, and while they lose the insurance and other benefits, they don’t have to return the car.

2 Wash. State hospitals reject physician-assisted suicide (McClatchy)
Providence St. Peter Hospital and Capital Medical Center officials said Thursday that the hospitals will not participate in physician-assisted suicide under the state’s new Death with Dignity law, but instead will refer terminally ill patients to their primary doctors.

No Ticket to Ride (by Anglachel)
I am perusing my complimentary copy of Eric Boehlert’s new book, Bloggers on the Bus (thanks, Eric), and I am mystified by an enormous lacuna in its pages. Nowhere is Bob Somerby or The Daily Howler directly mentioned. Perhaps I have not looked in the right place in the index or missed the specific pages where The Incomparable One is discussed, but I’m sitting here, scratching my head, trying to figure out how anyone, let alone someone as perceptive as Boehlert, can omit Bob Somerby from an analysis of the media and the blogs in Election ’08, especially as Somerby was cranking out some of the most clear-eyed, trenchant commentary on the circus.

Where is mention of Somerby’s brilliant phrase, Whoever Kidnapped Josh Marshall? A phrase that neatly sums up the schizophrenia gripping Left Blogistan by the throat from November 2007 through the Democratic National Convention, and continued to rear its psychotic head through the confirmation hearings for Secretary of State Clinton. A phrase that points directly to the paradox Boehlert himself identifies, then shies away from investigating, in the final few pages of the book – that “The bad news for liberal bloggers was that as the Obama campaign unfolded… it became obvious that bloggers were never really invited to the party.” (p.261)…

Obama was the candidate the MSM wanted to see elected. Obama’s “joke” at the press roast this weekend (some of you reported on me, all of you voted for me) is as revealing on this count as George Bush’s quip about the mega-rich (“or, as I call them, my base.”)… Obama was the establishment candidate, and the leading lights of the Left Blogosphere were as thoroughly managed by that establishment as any of the talking heads. What we witnessed in 2008 was the cognitive capture of the major blogs by the Beltway. The A-List bloggers are now functionally and culturally part of the Village. I doubt those bloggers will ever leave the bus.
As Anglachel mentions, Somerby started posting on the internet in 1998. But Bartcop started “blogging” in 1996, though blogging software didn’t exist then. Most, if not all, of the boyz got their start sending him comments on his posts, via email, which makes him the true blogfather. I haven’t finished the book, but so far I haven’t seen a mention of Bart. A bunch of us got started in 2000, and we’re not mentioned. In fact, the book seems to assume that the blogosphere sprang, fully formed, from the head of Eschaton in 2002. It’s not a complete history of the development of the blogosphere.

Wanda Sykes: Rush Limbaugh was the ’20th hijacker’ (Politico)
Highlights from Wanda Sykes’ stand-up act at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner:… “Mr. President . . . you’ve had your fair share of critics. … Rush Limbaugh, one of your big critics, boy — Rush Limbaugh said he hopes this administration fails. So you’re saying, ‘I hope America fails.’ You’re like, ‘I don’t care about people losing their homes, their jobs or our soldiers in Iraq.’ He just wants our country to fail. To me, that’s treason. He’s not saying anything differently than Osama bin Laden is saying. You know you might want to look into this, sir, because I think Rush Limbaugh was the 20th hijacker but he was just so strung out on Oxycontin he missed his flight.
Well ha, ha, ha, it’s a ROAST, right? But Limbaugh wasn’t the subject of the roast. Should progressives be using the same hateful tactics as right wingers? Click through for more “highlights” and for the video.

Progressives deserve something better: (by Bob Somerby at the Daily Howler)
Just when you think you’ve seen it all, you get to see something even sillier. [Friday] night, the analysts involuntarily rose from their chairs when Keith Olbermann made the following remarks to his guest, Jonathan Alter. He was discussing Dick Cheney’s radio interview with North Dakota talker Scott Hennen… “[T]here was this ugly note that Mr. Hennen left out of the transcript which refers to General Powell’s political remarks and Hennen said he was tired of Powell’s ‘tea-leaf reading,’ and he said he wished Powell would ‘stay in his lane.’ … Is that ultimately another Republican problem here, a sort of cultural problem, this disdain–that you’re not a real American, even if you’re a war hero–disdain they have for anybody who disagrees with them?”

Truly, there is no end to this program’s clowning when Olbermann complains about “disdain for anybody who disagrees with” the views of some group. But if you will, just marvel at what the fiery progressive said about Colin Powell… Our question: Was Powell a war hero when he threw together that gong-show report–the report he pimped at the UN, solidifying elite opinion about the need for war with Iraq?… This show is a fraud, a gong-show, a joke, a scam apparently designed to sell its advertisers’ products to gullible young progressives. (To the demo. Earning millions for its host in the process.) Last night’s show was crammed with the usual nonsense, spin and selected information, from its start right through to the finish.

Democracy Now ‘s EXCLUSIVE interview with NYT ‘s Barstow on Pentagon Pundits Scandal (by Karl Frisch at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman sat down for a fascinating interview with the New York Times’ David Barstow to discuss his Pulitzer Prize wining explosive reports detailing the hidden relationship among numerous media military analysts, the Pentagon, and defense contractors… Barstow’s exposé came out more than a year ago and Goodman was still able to call her interview an “exclusive.”  As Barstow notes, he hasn’t received “any invitations” to appear on “any of the main network and cable programs.” Be sure to watch this entire interview, it is must see web tv.

CBS’ Schieffer to Justice Souter: “I’ll be honest: I didn’t care for his attitude … I’ve never known anyone who ever saw him outside the court” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
[From] Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer’s “weekly commentary”.
Because what matters in Washington is being seen—and, presumably, only at the best parties.

Does the Washington Post think Barack Obama might nominate Clarence Thomas to the Supreme Court? (by Jamison Foser at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
[Saturday’s] Washington Post profiles Leah Ward Sears, chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court, under the header “Supreme Court Prospect Has Unlikely Ally.”  The subhead explains a little further: “Friendship With Thomas May Complicate Chances for Left-Leaning Georgia Judge.” Wait a second.  Her chances may be complicated simply because of her friendship with Clarence Thomas?  Who says? As it turns out, no one.

ABC’s The Note is so bad, it’s funny (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
[T]ry not to laugh out loud as The Note celebrates its fave meme: Dems are in trouble!!… Yep, Dems have picked up 15 senate seats and 55 House seats in the last five years. They just won a landslide election.  Their new president, who will soon enjoy a filibuster-proof majority in Congress, is enjoying sky-high approval ratings. And a prominent Republican just got so fed up with his shrinking party that he crossed party lines. But forget all that. Because Dems are self-destructing…. The Note, once again, completely failed in its only real purpose, which is to accurately handicap Beltway politics as is plays out in real time.

CBS golf analyst Feherty: “[I]f you gave any U.S. soldier a gun with two bullets in it … there’s a good chance that Nancy Pelosi would get shot twice, and Harry Reid and bin Laden would be strangled to death.” (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
From Feherty’s column on D Magazine.

CBS Responds To The Growing Feherty Controversy (County Fair, Media Matters for America)
LeslieAnne Wade, CBS Sports senior vice president, communications, issued the following statement in response to CBS golf analyst David Feherty’s outrageous comments about Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid: “While outside his work for CBS, David Feherty is a popular humorist, we want to be clear that this column for a Dallas magazine is an unacceptable attempt at humor and is not in any way condoned, endorsed or approved by CBS Sports.”

How CNN Can Beat Back Fox and MSNBC (by Jon Fine, Business Week)
In prime time it’s not enough for CNN to lean on its advantages: its bigger reporting staff and middle-course sensibilities. It’s time to embrace a new prime-time ethos for CNN, which encompasses the bona fides of the brand CNN and the fact that, like it or not, on-screen combat is good TV.

‘Kristol Issues Another Correction: I Was Wrong To Blame Obama For Stock Market Declines (Think Progress)
In discussing the state of the economy this morning on Fox News Sunday, conservative commentator Bill Kristol noted that the stock market has performed reasonably well over the last several months. “The market’s up 35 percent in the last two months, which is pretty amazing,” Kristol said. He then noted that those Republicans —including himself — who were “chortling” about the stock market’s significant decline just after President Obama’s inauguration would now be forced to admit that they were wrong.
Because if Obama is blamed for the downturns, he has to be given credit for the upturns. Which Kristol can in no way bring himself to do. Click through to watch the video.

Newt Gingrich: “McCarthyist” Obama Wants To “Put Terrorists On Welfare” (by Sam Stein at the Huffington Post)
In an interview that was fiery even by his standards, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich accused the Obama administration of coddling terrorists, tarred the idea of investigating the Bush administration as modern day “McCarthyism,” and falsely charged that the Democratic-controlled Congress never tried to outlaw torture. It was, if nothing else, an unrestrained tour de force in oppositional politics. Sitting down with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday, Gingrich claimed that the former firm of Attorney General Eric Holder had represented 17 alleged terrorists on a pro-bono basis. “For no fee,” he added, for good measure. “It is the largest single thing they were doing for free, defending Yemenis.”

Time ‘s Klein rips Limbaugh for “on a daily basis … delivering misinformation, lies to a large audience in America” (video at County Fair, Media Matters for America)

It’s like GOP Reefer Madness, the book edition (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
Yep, there’s now an entire book-length defense of talk radio against the interloping liberals who want to “silence” and “censor” right-wingers on the airwaves; who want to dictate content. It’s called Censorship: The Threat to Silence Talk Radio. Slight problem: there is no high-powered attempt by liberals to silence or censor right-wingers on the AM dial. But hey, other than that it’s a great idea for a book. And I’m sure it will find an audience because conservatives, apparently, love to keep each other up at night recounting ghost stories about how Democrats are going to ravage the AM dial by bringing back the Fairness Doctrine, a long-forgotten FCC regulation that nobody cares about…

The only thing’s going to “silence” AM talk radio is the disintegrating state of the American radio industry, lead by the wildly irresponsible spending and business practices of Clear Channel. Or is that the fault of Democrats too?

Media Matters for America headlines

The Hill continues to ignore GOP’s past embrace of reconciliation

Wash. Times didn’t disclose subcontractor ties of McInerney, purported spokesman for “the Air Force fighter community”

On Special Report, Baier promoted unnamed global “cooling” studies

Wallace silent as Gingrich falsely claims Dems did not try to ban waterboarding

Schieffer let Cheney falsely equate harsh interrogation techniques, U.S. military training

Media let GOP change the subject in torture debate

Wash. Times falsely claims Pelosi said she attended 40 briefings on harsh interrogation methods

NY Times advanced GOP attack on Clinton-era renditions

Matthews falsely asserted CIA doc says Pelosi was briefed on “the use of waterboarding”

As GOP puts Guantánamo in Americans’ backyards, media say it’s a “winning issue”

Microsoft says EU may boost Google dominance: report
Microsoft says EU regulators will hand Google more dominance of the Internet search business if they go ahead with planned regulations on Microsoft’s Windows operating system, the Financial Times reported.

Google prime target for regulators
Google’s unabashed success as an Internet search and advertising juggernaut has placed it in the crosshairs of regulators worried the firm will trample free market competition.

Lawmaker Defends Imprisoning Hostile Bloggers (Threat Level, Wired)
Rep. Linda Sanchez responded Wednesday to Threat Level’s tirade against her proposed legislation outlawing hostile electronic speech. Her answer: “Congress has no interest in censoring.”… [But here’s] what H.R. 1966 says: “…Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication, with the intent to coerce, intimidate, harass or cause substantial emotional distress to a person, using electronic means to support severe, repeated and hostile behavior, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both…”

This measure and Sanchez’s electronic defense of it are so emotionally distressing to us that, if adopted, perhaps Sanchez should be the first to be prosecuted under the statute. We strongly urge Sanchez and the measure’s 14 other congressional backers  to promptly withdraw this proposal.

When Chevron Hires Ex-Reporter to Investigate Pollution, Chevron Looks Good
Chevron learned that “60 Minutes” was preparing a potentially damaging report about contamination of the rain forest in Ecuador, so it hired a former journalist to produce its own favorable report.

Missouri journalism students required to buy iPhone or iPod touch?
Starting this fall, journalism students at the University of Missouri, Columbia will need to add an iPhone or an iPod touch to their shopping carts.

California-Focused Investigative Reporting Initiative
The Center for Investigative Reporting is launching a new statewide reporting initiative to produce in-depth multimedia journalism specific to California and to engage the public on issues of critical importance to the state.

Pincus: Newspaper journalists too focused on winning prizes, appearing on TV
Walter Pincus points out that the Washington Post won nineteen Pulitzers in the last decade, but lost more than 120,000 readers in that time. “Why? My answer, unpopular among my colleagues, is that while many of these longer efforts were worthwhile, they took up space and resources that could have been used to give readers a wider selection of stories about what was going on, and that may have directly affected their lives.”

Wolff Predicts ‘Death of Newspapers’ — Adds It’s Not So Bad
Vanity Fair columnist Michael Wolff again predicted the “death of newspapers” Thursday adding that he’d been having “fun” pushing the proposition in recent months to the point of being considered a “Dr. Doom.” Newspapers “not only will go away but they should go away,” he said.

Separation of Press and State (New York Times)
Government help for the news industry would hobble the free press model. Painful as it is, newspapers must stand or fall on their own.

Maybe Minnesota Public Radio should buy the Strib
Without MPR as a buyer, there are only two ugly options for the Star Tribune, according to Rohn Jay Miller. “The most probable is that a new investor merges the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press together and tries to somehow chop enough flesh and bone off to make a profit without killing it entirely. …The other ugly option is that these two dinosaurs just go out of business entirely.”

Non-For-Profit Isn’t A Business Model For Newspapers (by Lauren Rich Fine at Paid Content)
While I won’t go so far as to suggest that the current problems are all due to poor management, management was ill-equipped to handle the competitive challenges created by the Internet and changing media consumption and advertising habits. Despite that, many still went on an acquisition binge that has pushed several into bankruptcy. Some of these teams still think an economic recovery will fix all their problems.

Everyone agrees that journalism is worth preserving. I say, let the market figure it out on its own. A plethora of start-ups have launched based on that presumption. MinnPost, St. Louis Beacon, ProPublica, Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting, New England Center of Investigative Journalism and GlobalPost are among the many relatively new organizations attempting to both fill the gaps being left by reduced coverage at major metropolitan papers as well as take some of them on directly.

Sure, these are mostly not-for-profits themselves. But the reason why they have a decent shot at surviving isn’t because of that philanthropic support—it’s because of their entrepreneurial spirit and lean cost structure, two things most newspaper companies are lacking. While these startups may not all thrive, that more-organic model is still better than taking poorly run newspapers and granting them nonprofit status and expecting that to cure their problems. Nonprofit is not a business model.

Sorry, Senators: No Newspaper Is Worth Saving in its Entirety (by Simon Dumenco at Advertising Age)
[M]ajor American nonprofit newspapers are now an inevitability. The efforts of Cardin and other suddenly panicky politicians, like last week’s “Future of Journalism” hearing chair John Kerry, will gain momentum. Meanwhile, for-profit newspapers will not, as some have speculated in the past weeks, become subject to a Detroit- or Wall Street-style bailout.

Because they absolutely shouldn’t be — and not just because of the thorny separation-of-church-and-state issues. What’s worth preserving at newspapers is, let’s face it, actually rather limited. I’m talking about the obvious stuff, of course. The serious reporting (international, local-civic, etc.) stays, while the lifestyle fluff goes. If public dollars do end up getting (indirectly) deployed in the form of tax relief to papers reconfigured as nonprofits, they absolutely shouldn’t be keeping home sections or horoscopes or even sports sections afloat. (There are plenty of other media operations, such as ESPN.com, that know perfectly well how to make money in those realms.)

In other words — let me just state the harsh truth here — there is no American newspaper that is worth preserving in its entirely, in its current configuration, as a nonprofit.

Making NYTimes.com Viable (by Henry Blodget at Silicon Alley Insider)
To become financially viable online, the New York Times would have to cut its editorial costs by 60 to 70 percent. We believe the NYT currently employs about 1,200 people in editorial. Assuming some cuts could be achieved with salary reductions, this would require the release of 600-700 employees.

Interview: Rob Grimshaw, Publisher Of FT.com: Newspapers Must Add Paid Content (Paid Content)
It’s impossible to fund an online content business through ads alone, and the return of paid content could benefit the whole industry, according to FT.com publisher Rob Grimshaw… “We’ve done the sums—it’s really difficult to see how an advertising-only business can stack up unless you’ve got enormous volume. If you start doing some simple math on this thing, it becomes clear what a challenge it is. If you’re aiming to make $50 million a year from your online advertising business, which is not massive, you’re going to need 833 million page impressions per month at CPMs of $5 a time. If they drop to a dollar, you need 4.1 billion. There are hardly any websites that have anywhere near that volume and few can aspire to it. You’re going to need some other way to make money other than adverts.”

Murdoch: Web sites to charge for content
Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch expects News Corporation-owned newspaper Web sites to start charging users for access within a year in a move which analysts say could radically shake-up the culture of freely available content… He said 360,000 people had downloaded an iPhone WSJ application in three weeks. Users would soon be made to pay “handsomely” for accessing WSJ content, he added. Murdoch said he envisaged other News Corp. titles introducing charges within 12 months.

NYT leads list of most popular newspaper blogs
The Times has 22 blogs on Simon Owens’ list of the 50 most popular newspaper blogs. The Los Angeles Times comes in second, with nine.

News council chief wants media to follow “the TAO of journalism”
John Hamer says whatever new forms of delivery evolve in the news business, journalists must be transparent, accountable, and open (TAO). “Because journalists have unique rights, they have extra responsibilities,” he writes.

Dow Jones In Joint Venture To Launch WSJ Japan Site (Paid Content)
WSJ’s overseas expansion is continuing, now that parent Dow Jones has struck a joint venture with financial services company SBI Holdings to start up an online Japanese version of the newspaper’s site.

Globe Deal Would Eliminate Lifetime Job Guarantees
The proposal under consideration by the Boston Globe’s largest union includes a pay cut of 8.4 percent and the elimination of lifetime job guarantees held by 190 members in exchange for a $33,000 payment plus severance for each of those guaranteed employees who gets laid off.

Globe publisher expects more jobs cuts in the near future
“Layoffs or staff reductions or force reductions are probably part of the way we operate this newspaper for at least the foreseeable future. …But we can’t cut ourselves to success. No business can,” says Globe publisher Steven Ainsley. He also says:
* “I’ve asked every person in this building to make enormous personal sacrifices in the name of this institution. That’s hard to do.”
* “We do have to have healing. We’ve got to get to the point that we’re comfortable with the notion that these type of sacrifices that the company has asked of all of us are worth it.”
* “With some irony, it’s been energizing to fully understand how important we are to the community.”

San Diego Union-Tribune’s new owner to cut 192 jobs
The announcement comes three days after Platinum Equity, a Beverly Hills private equity firm, completed its acquisition of the paper from longtime owner Copley Press. VoiceofSanDiego.org reports about 50 newsroom jobs will be cut.

SF Chron Begins Layoffs
The San Francisco Chronicle began laying off editorial employees Thursday, and is expected to eliminate up to 30 jobs in the latest round of staffing cuts at the troubled daily. Approximately eight to 10 of the cuts are from the Chronicle’s metro desk.

Star-Ledger announces salary and benefits cuts
The Star-Ledger says it’s reducing employee salaries and will no longer cover the entire cost of employee health insurance. The first $40,000 of a staffer’s salary will be reduced 5%, the next $40,000 by 10%. “You also may be asking: Will this be the end? I can’t promise that,” writes publisher George Arwady. “I can understand if you are angry and upset at what you’ve read so far, especially in conjunction with the various other changes we’ve already had to make.”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch parent posts $51.8M loss for the quarter
Lee Enterprises reports fiscal second-quarter revenue fell 20% as advertising sales declined 24%. “One glimmer is that year-over-year revenue declines have flattened over the last three months,” says CEO Mary Junck.

“Dammit, I’m gonna to cancel the paper!” (Oh, sure you are)
“Rarely a day passes without a handful of irate readers telling me they’ve dropped their subscription because the paper is too biased,” writes Washington Post ombudsman Andrew Alexander. “But so far this year, The Post’s circulation department reports that only about 1 percent cited ‘bias’ as their reason for canceling.”

Thomson Reuters Launches BlackBerry, iPhone Apps; First Big Step In $1 Billion Multimedia Investment (Paid Content)
On Monday, the UK news services company will release its Thomson Reuters News Pro app for the iPhone and Blackberry… The BlackBerry app is more text-centric, while the iPhone places more emphasis on the video and photo features. Ahearn: “The iPhone app is targeted to all business professionals, not just financial consumers, or users in legal or health and science. It’s for Thomson Reuters professional audience writ large.” He says the company will roll out a number of other products this year.

A Latte With Journalism on the Side
Cafes attached to the newsroom of a Czech weekly are part of a new venture in so-called hyperlocal journalism, which aims to reconnect newspapers with readers.

Metro International Selling US Titles To Keep It Afloat (Paid Content)
Cash-strapped freesheet publisher Metro International is selling off loss-making Metro USA, its US newspaper business, to Seabay Media, a company formed by its former CEO Pelle Törnberg. The deal means a new owner for the New York and Philadelphia editions of the commuter paper, plus the Boston edition, of which it owns 51 percent in a partnership with the Boston Globe. The three have a combined 590,000 daily circulation and 1.2 million readers. Seabay will continue to publish the Metros under license from the London-based Swedish group, which will continue to sell their advertising and will save it €2 million ($2.72 million) a year.

How Kindle Removes Barriers to Newspaper Reading  (by Will Sullivan at Poynter Online)
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos announced the new Kindle DX e-reader Wednesday, including a pilot program integrating newspaper content from three big east coast papers. Henry Blodget from Silicon Valley Insider pulled out an interesting tidbit from Bezos’ speech: “Kindle sales are now 35 percent of book sales when Kindle editions are available. Huge jump in Feb. when Kindle 2 went on sale. If that’s even close to accurate, it’s hard to overstate the importance of it. Kindle penetration is still tiny. As it grows, that percentage will likely grow.”

This helps illustrate that Kindle users are voracious readers and with the new version tailored to newspaper subscribers, it could help temper newspapers’ circulation drops. One of the Kindle’s key strengths for newspapers is that it makes information almost instantly accessible and portable like print newspapers, but removes the print barriers for entry.

Ex-Radar honcho Roshan lands at TheWeek.com
Maer Roshan will be the website’s editor. Keith J. Kelly notes in his last column item that The Week posted a 42% gain in ad pages in the first quarter — one of just 15 magazines to report an ad-page rise.

Lots of room for online growth.
Radio and TV received $805 million in local online advertising last year. But according to BIA’s The Kelsey Group that’s just 7.3% of the $11 billion spent in local markets. BIA says stations need to “step-up” mobile and internet offerings.

Guitar Hero Mania: Activision’s Got A Tour, TV Show In Mind (Paid Content)
Not content to dominate the video-game landscape with Guitar Hero, Activision is reportedly in talks with Hollywood studios about bringing the franchise to TV, film, and possibly even a real-life world tour.

Ad Losses Put Squeeze on TV News
With lower ad revenue since the presidential election, some outlets are looking to pool resources in a variety of ways.

Networks Take a Stand Against Obama’s Prime-Time Pre-Emptions (Hollywood Reporter)
President Obama has cost the big four networks about $30 million in cumulative ad revenue this year with his news conference pre-emptions. Now execs are hoping that Fox’s rejection of the president’s April 29 presser will serve as precedent for denying future White House requests for prime airtime.

Cue the world’s smallest violin. Again (by Eric Boehlert at County Fair, Media Matters for America)
The Hollywood Reporter goes big … with a long article about how entertainment execs at the nets hate pre-empting their schedules for Obama’s primetime pressers. About how the nets are losing millions of dollars in ad revenue, although actually, as the HR explains, the money’s not actually lost, those commercials pre-empted by the press conference are just shifted to other times slots.

Few TV Reports on Audience Flight
Newspapers have had much more to say about their declining audiences than national television news.

Broadcast Upfront Could Be Down as Much as 20%
First Serious Decline Since 2001 Will Still Lead to at Least a $7B Take

What’s Wrong With How We Buy National TV
TV Execs From Both Sides of the Table Candidly Discuss What National TV Buying Should Be, and How to Get There

Upfront Not Working for You? Try Reversing It, Like Unilever
By Approaching Networks With Specific Marketing Goals, Marketer Gets Media Working for Its Brands

Cable Channels Sit Right Down and Write the Advertisers a Letter
As the upfront market nears for the 2009-10 TV season, the cable channels are stepping up their efforts to divert to themselves some of the billions of dollars taken in by the broadcast networks. The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, the trade organization for the cable industry, is sending letters to 50 top TV advertisers that detail what it considers to be the benefits of buying commercial time on cable.

No Slowing in Cash Flow for ‘Idol’
Despite losing viewers in each of the last three years, “American Idol” is generating ever-growing profits for its backers through brand extensions, marketing arrangements and licensing fees.

Hearst’s Food Network Mag a Hit
Hearst Magazines looks like it may have its biggest hit since the launch of O, the Oprah Magazine, as it launches the Food Network Magazine on a regular publication schedule this week. The first test issue last fall sold about 70 percent of its copies, and the second issue had a 55 percent sell-through rate.

Snyderman To Anchor New MSNBC Program
The new additions to MSNBC dayside keep coming. MSNBC has announced a new one-hour program hosted by NBC News chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman. The program will air at Noon ET beginning June 29.

Amazon Powers Track Sales For ABC’s New ‘Music Lounge’ (Paid Content)
With record labels cutting promo budgets and less room for “new artists” on radio playlists, getting a song featured on a hot show like Grey’s Anatomy or Gossip Girl can be the biggest break in an emerging artist’s career. So when fans flood the network’s site with questions about the new song, it makes sense to have a place to capitalize on that demand. And that’s what ABC is doing with its new “Music Lounge”: Fans can watch music videos and behind-the-scenes show footage, stream songs—and most importantly, buy them—through ABC’s distribution partner Amazon.com.

At first glance, the idea seems like a win-win for all the parties involved: the artists get exposure and the labels get track sales. (It’s not clear whether ABC is getting an affiliate’s cut of those sales, but it does have BlackBerry as a site sponsor, so that’s a revenue stream). Dawn Soler, ABC’s VP for TV music also told THR that the network was working with Epic Records, among other labels, for initiatives like the Music Lounge that could ultimately help reduce track licensing fees for shows. Meanwhile, Amazon gains a little more traction in the MP3 sales market, though ABC said it hadn’t ruled out partnering with iTunes in the future.

ABC Sets Aisha Tyler Talk Show
Aisha Tyler has been tapped to host a talk show pilot for ABC. The Aisha Tyler Show is described as a hybrid that will incorporate aspects of a traditional talk show with comedic political commentary, produced comedy segments, and other elements usually associated with late-night shows.

CBS Corp. Swings to $55.3-Million Loss
The anemic advertising market drained the profit from CBS Corp. The broadcasting company has reported a first-quarter net loss of $55.3 million, or eight cents a share. That compared with net income of $244.3 million, or 36 cents, for the same period last year.

Earnings: Soft Ad, E-Commerce Market Pushes Scripps Networks’ Profit Down 10 Percent (Paid Content)
Scripps Networks Interactive, the do-it-yourself home and lifestyle oriented cable entertainment company, has some fixing up of its own: the weak ad market sent Q1 profits 10 percent lower to $60.1 million ($0.37 per share), as revenues slipped 7 percent to $361 million. In addition to a 4.6 ad decline in its Lifestyle Media segment, which includes cable networks like HGTV, DIY and The Food Network, poor performance at the company’s Shopzilla and uSwitch comparison shopping sites also contributed to the fall. Beyond that, $3.7 million in expenses stemming from the spinoff from the EW Scripps Company last July were also a factor.

What’s the Right Business Model Now for TV Content Distribution?
Mitch Berman, CEO of on-demand video service ZillionTV, observes: “There is a critical ecosystem and convergence, if you will, of content providers, advertisers and ISPs that still needs to occur. Sitting above those three at the top of the ladder are consumers.”

Hulu agrees international TV deals
Hulu, the US online video service owned by NBC Universal, Fox and Walt Disney, has signed its first batch of content deals with international television producers, the first step towards a full global launch of the service. The new content deals will bring a raft of UK programming to the site following agreements struck between Hulu and Endemol, the producer of Big Brother, and Digital Rights Group. Digital Rights Group will provide full episodes of comedies including Green Wing, Peep Show and Doc Martin. Endemol is initially supplying reality shows, such as Anything for Love and I Want To Be A Hilton. The site has also struck deals with Saavn, one of the largest distributors of Bollywood movies.

McDonald’s Buys Prime Time ‘Roadblock’ on Hulu
McCafe Sponsorship Gives Users 8 Hours of Ad-Free Viewing

Find Out What’s Happening Right Now With Scoopler (by Stan Schroeder at Mashable)
Earlier today I wrote about the challenges Twitter search is facing in its quest to become a real competitor in the search game. Well, they’re not the only ones that are doing it. Enter Scoopler, a Y Combinator funded search engine that searches the web in real time. Scoopler is indexing live streams from Twitter, Digg, Delicious, Flickr and Identica in real-time, and not only that; it’s also indexing links, videos and photos from these data sources, which is similar to what Twitter has been planning to do. As a result, Scoopler doesn’t feel so much as a search engine, more like a news site with a constant stream of live updates in the middle (paused when you mouseover, a nice touch), list of hot topics on the left, and most popular results on the right.

Prism 1.0 for Firefox: Gmail, Facebook, YouTube and More on Your Desktop (Mashable)
The browser and the desktop are melding. Web applications like Facebook or Twitter used to be primarily browser-based, but more and more products such as Tweetdeck and Seesmic Desktop are bringing that functionality off-browser. Firefox though, can do a lot more. Mozilla has released version 1.0 of the Prism Firefox extension. It’s a Firefox extension that allows you to transform web applications into desktop ones. According to CNET, the new update adds auto-update support, the ability to clear private data, a new API for developers, and best of all, tray icons with notifications.

Numbers in April: Twitter and Facebook Shine, MySpace Stagnates (Mashable)
Facebook’s growth, both in terms of the number of users, as well as visitors, … is slowing down, but it’s still huge given how big Facebook already is. Compete’s numbers for April show that Facebook has grown from 91,000,000 to 104,000,000 unique visitors, a healthy 14.35% increase from March. What’s the secret, you ask? Facebook Connect… Where is MySpace in all this? Stagnating… Twitter, on the other hand, has looked tiny compared to these services mere months ago. Now it can definitely be put on the same graph, but to show its stellar growth I’ve given it a graph of its own. The growth has slowed down somewhat; the number of unique visitors has grown from 14,000,000 to 19,000,000, which is 38,56% growth.

Hoax Leads to Questions about Journalists’ Use of Wikipedia  (by Will Sullivan at Poynter Online)
A 22-year-old student in Dublin, Ireland, recently set up a Wikipedia hoax that led several major United Kingdom news outlets to publish a fake quote after they used the socially-curated encyclopedia site to get information about French composer Maurice Jarre, who died in March. The hoax was left unnoticed for weeks. Genevieve Carbery of The Irish Times reported this week: “The quote … was posted on the online encyclopedia shortly after [Jarre's] death and later appeared in obituaries published in the Guardian, the London Independent, on the BBC Music Magazine Web site and in Indian and Australian newspapers.”

New Search Tool Aims at Answering Tough Queries, but Not at Taking on Google
WolframAlpha doesn’t work like Web search engines, but instead mines vast pools of data collected by the company… [I]ts creator, Stephen Wolfram, wants to make something clear: Despite the online chatter comparing it to Google, his service is not intended to dethrone the king of search engines… Mr. Wolfram’s service does not search through Web pages, and it will not help with movie times or camera shopping. Instead it computes the answers to queries using enormous collections of data the company has amassed. It can quickly spit out facts like the average body mass index of a 40-year-old male, whether the Eiffel Tower is taller than Seattle’s Space Needle, and whether it is high tide in Miami right now.

WolframAlpha, which is expected to be available to the public at wolframalpha.com in the next week, is not a finished product. It is an early working version of a project that has been years in the making and will continue to evolve over years, if not decades. As such, there is much it cannot answer now… The goal of creating a computer system that can answer questions has been a tantalizing but elusive pursuit for many computer scientists for more than four decades. Some veterans of the field say Mr. Wolfram may have come as close as anyone yet.
I did an independent study course in graduate school during which I longed for such a service. I never could find what I needed in the library, as books were checked out or misplaced. Even now that many government statistics are posted online, they’re all in separate listings on different websites, and poorly indexed. Having all the information in one place and searchable, with calculations available or already done, will make it possible to do research projects that simply could not have been done before.

Social Media Marketing: Sears and Kmart Step It Up (Mashable)
The intersection of social media and longstanding brands is a fascinating phenomenon to study. How does a company that has been around for decades react to the fast-paced world of social media? Do they shun it or embrace it? Do they stumble or do they create a deeper connect with their customers? This week, Sears Holdings officially launched two social networks for their customers, MySears and MyKmart. Although these social communities do have a few quirks, the initiative that they represent, coupled with their well-designed social elements, is a sign of how more traditional companies are embracing social media technology to create a better customer experience and a better brand.

Feds Eying The Mommy Blogger-Brand Relationship (Paid Content)
There’s a reason that brands love mommy bloggers. With more moms turning to the web for parenting advice, camaraderie and product recommendations—a favorable review from the likes of bloggers like Dooce, Melinda Roberts or even a less-known mom with a blog can translate directly to an uptick in sales. But with the FTC trying to tackle the issue of “truth” in social media advertising, the relationship between brands and mommy bloggers is coming under scrutiny.

MSN Overhauls Local City Guides Site; Will The New Features Resonate? (Paid Content)
In the battle for the local online market, AOL and Yahoo are going with a model that is heavy on listings and ratings. Microsoft is trying a different tack. The company is rolling out an overhaul of its MSN City Guides site this week, adding several features, including the ability to share activities with others via the site. The goal, according to Scott Moore, U.S. executive producer of MSN: Differentiate the site from competitors. “Everybody has kind of approached this space in a similar way as sort of an entertainment guide,” he said in an interview with paidContent.org. “Most don’t have news at all, don’t have weather.”

Moore envisions MSN City Guides as a hub for users to start the day. He calls it an “information dashboard for your life.” “That’s the vision—we’re not there yet—but it moves us in that direction,” Moore said. The new MSN City Guides features a complete redesign, with customized themes for different cities as well as local videos and maps.

Google Expected To Walk Away From ‘Unfavorable’ AdSense Deals With AOL, MySpace (Paid Content)
Google has been battered by the recession along with everyone else, but an analyst note from Bernstein Research’s Jeff Lindsay says that could be about to change. He sees the company reversing the dismal revenue-per-click performance that have impacted all search ads by walking away from “unfavorable” AdSense for Search and AdSense for content deals. Specifically, Google is not expected to maintain the current revenue guarantees and what Lindsay said was “exceptionally high”  rates it pays to partners such as AOL and MySpace for traffic acquisition.

Will More Ads = More Revenue for FeedBurner Publishers? (Mashable)
Ever since Google acquired FeedBurner, complaints from bloggers have been plentiful, both in terms of lagging functionality and subpar ad revenue as Google has transitioned the product to AdSense for Feeds… This [past] week, they’ve started testing new ad units with select publishers in hopes of increasing revenue. As opposed to a single graphical ad attached to a story within the feed, the new format includes 3 different ads: two 300×250 graphical ads, as well as a text ad unit. These ads are still mostly contextual… Advertisers can also buy ads on the feeds of specific publishers, which, could explain why sometimes the ads don’t appear to match the content.

Microsoft Brings Facebook To Windows Mobile Devices
Mobile-phone users with Microsoft Windows Mobile devices and who have a Facebook account can keep up with what their friends are doing, thanks to a new Microsoft application. The software giant made Facebook for Windows Mobile available for download on its Web site.

Apple’s New Plans For Wireless Downloads (Paid Content)
Apple already sells iPods through kiosks in airports and stores, but the company also has plans for units that will let people load up on digital movies and music on the go. AppleInsider dug up a patent detailing Apple’s plan to develop a kiosk that will let owners of iPods, iPhones and other devices buy content through “virtual physical connection,” meaning the units would eliminate the need for a user to have wireless access to download the content.

Apple isn’t commenting on the news, but the implications for travelers could be big. Placing an iTunes kiosk where there’s limited Wi-Fi, such as in an airport or bus terminal—or actually on the plane or bus, as Apple proposes—could save them frustration (and huge roaming charges, if the kiosks were set up overseas). Each kiosk would have its own local server for fast downloads of current hits and new releases, but also a connection to the iTunes library for older content; payment would be by logging in to an iTunes account or swiping a debit/credit card.

AT&T to buy territories from Verizon for $2.35B
AT&T Inc. said Friday it will buy the assets of Verizon Wireless in 79 mainly rural areas for $2.35 billion, a deal that will affect more than 1 million subscribers. Verizon Wireless was forced to sell the service areas, which are spread over 18 states, to satisfy regulatory conditions of its purchase of Alltel Corp. The areas are mainly Alltel territories that overlap with Verizon’s own coverage, but also some Verizon territories and areas covered by Rural Cellular, another carrier Verizon bought last year.

Schumer calls for probe into phone spam
Unsolicited calls to home and cell phones warning of a final notice and an expiring vehicle warranty are a nuisance and harassment and should be the subject of a federal investigation, a U.S. senator said Sunday.

In China, $700 Puts a Spammer in Business
It’s a great deal, if you’re a spammer.

Microsoft Pitches Photo-Stitching Application To Businesses (Paid Content)
Until now, Microsoft’s Photosynth has been mostly a consumer-oriented application, used to bring multiple pictures together in a 3-D photo landscape. But Microsoft said Thursday it would integrate Photosynth with its Virtual Earth mapping platform, in hopes of selling the package to business customers. The idea is that companies could combine their Photosynth pictures with Visual Earth’s aerial, 3-D views.

Google to Run TV Commercials for Chrome (Mashable)
Google is not known for gaining market share by heavily advertising its products. However, the company has been diverging from its organic growth strategy when it comes to its new web browser: Google Chrome. Chrome ads have been showing up all over the Web, both on Google-owned properties like YouTube and third-party websites like LinkedIn. Now, the company is set to launch television advertising to promote the Web browser, starting this weekend. The commercial itself was developed by Google Japan and is rather abstract, featuring no words and simply the message “Install Google Chrome” at the end. It’s all very Apple-like, so much so that I almost expect the “there’s an app for that” voice to show up at any moment.
Click through to watch the ad.