Hot off the Press: My Name is Earl edition

The trail of corruption in Afghanistan is slowly leading up to President Karzai himself as one of his key aides is found to be on the CIA payroll: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/world/asia/26kabul.html?_r=1&hp.

"Building a nation of know-nothings": http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/building-a-nation-of-know-nothings/?hp.

The USA Today is getting overhauled: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/28/business/media/28paper.html?_r=1. Honestly, I never read the USA Today. My dad has always thought it was the best newspaper in the country, but I have no opinion. It is owned by Gannett, which is one strike against it, and I'm dead sure much of this overhaul was prompted by cuts into Gannett's profit margin, not anything to do with USA Today's declining dead tree sales. Look, if newspapers want to survive they will eventually figure out that online subscriptions is the only way to go. There was a time — and not too long ago, even — when anyone who wanted to read the paper had to buy one.

I didn't hear about this until today (8/27/10): Ken Mehlman, the former campaign mastermind for George W. Bush, came out of the closet in an interview for The Atlantic and announced he was gay. And the Republican establishment just shrugged it off as no big deal, an apparent sign that the party is becoming more accepting to gays and same-sex marriage: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/politics/27mehlman.html?ref=us. According to an HBO documentary I saw, just about everyone in the Republican's inner circle is gay.

CRG sports writer Marc Morehouse is a fucking hophead: http://gazetteonline.com/blogs/on-iowa/2010/08/27/beer-o-clock-camp-edition.

An Arizona man is fighting his homeowners' association (no doubt he lives in a gated community) after they asked him to remove the Gadsden flag ("DONT TREAD ON ME") he flies at his house: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/31/us/politics/31flag.html?_r=1&ref=us. I'm taking the flag flier's side in this, but, technically, he's in clear violation of the contract he signed with his homeowners' association. Ain't it a bitch when developers and businessmen infringe on your free speech rights? Maybe government intervention and regulation isn't such a bad thing huh?