Monday Medley

What we read after knocking out Manny Pacquiao…

• Some great lists of the year’s best photographs, as well as an illustrated deck of cards for The Wire characters.

• The leaked audio of Fox News’ Kathleen McFarland talking to David Petraeus last year is sickening and revealing.

• Judd Apatow edited the first comedy issue of Vanity Fair, which featured, among other things, this oral history of Freaks and Geeks.

• The ongoing persecution of Bradley Manning continues, but most of the media, including The New York Times which benefited from his leaks, is still ignoring him.

• Joe Posnanski on breaking down the baseball Hall of Fame. Also, Will Leitch on Bob Costas.

• Everything you ever wanted to know about New York City candy shops.

• The militarization of America’s police forces, and some moral questions about the military itself.

• What happened to Google Reader?

• Why significant credit card bonuses are here to stay.

• Noam Chomsky celebrated his birthday this weekend.

• Why the fiscal cliff doesn’t really matter.

• Jay-Z on the subway.

• The worst free throw of all time.

Monday Medley

What we read while being passed over for VP yet again…

• Coach K capped his career as the Team USA head coach with a win over Spain in yesterday’s gold medal game. Speaking of the Olympics, Individual Spring Track Cycling is odd.

• In case you missed it, Mitt Romney chose Paul Ryan as his running mate. Nate Silver called the choice “risky,” though voices in both parties seem happy about it. This probably means one of them is wrong. If you don’t know much about Ryan, The New Yorker just ran a presciently-timed profile. Also, here’s Jonathan Chait on Ryan from April, and Matt Taibbi on him from last year.

• Speaking of the Romney campaign, Vanity Fair on the Karl Rove renaissance.

• Evgeny Morozov takes down TED.

• Another reason to work for Google…

• How Taco Bell is demonstrating economic progress.

• The real effects of sanctions on Iran.

• Why is the reaction different when terrorists are white?

• Andy Kindler criticizes Louis C.K. (gasp!).

Monday Medley

What we read while putting away our hoodies and Skittles…

• It’s been a week since the day that shook the world: The revelation of “A” on Pretty Little Liars, in an episode that broke social media records. The cast discussed their favorite “A” moments, while Morgan Glennon discussed the show’s feminism.

• Will the Democrats remove civil liberties from the 2012 platforms after Obama has spent four years dismantling them? Meanwhile, Michael Tomasky doesn’t think Obama should announce support for gay marriage until after he gets re-elected.

• This week in oral histories: Vanity Fair looks back at The Sopranos.

• Gizmodo wonders if Google has reached the point where it can’t follow its original slogan.

• Support our atheist troops! Speaking of atheism, Sam Harris wonders why more liberals won’t call Islam on its bullshit.

• Metacritic has 50 films to look forward to in 2012, which is basically like The Dark Knight Rises and 49 other films.

• A look at Craig James’ weird campaign for Senate in Texas.

• If you’re not already sick of hearing about Mad Men‘s return, here’s a video of the women of the cast singing (kind of). Also, a look at the double standard fans apply to Don and Betty.

• Should we tax the obese?

• Apropos of nothing, the short story that inspired Rear Window.

• Happy Birthday to the interrobang! We wish we could have phrased that sentence so that it could have reasonably been punctuated with an interrobang.

• Newt Gingrich or Kanye West?

Monday Medley

What we read while sexually harassing Herman Cain back…

• Two economists, including NPI-favorite Tyler Cowen, explain the NBA lockout.

• In better basketball news, Chuck Klosterman came up with a somewhat controversial list of the 50 greatest college basketball players ever.

• Friend of the blog Ben Cohen profiles previous subject of the blog (and we wish one day friend of the blog) Jon Scheyer.

• Bill Simmons and Entertainment Weekly each look back at the career arc of Eddie Murphy, who might possibly return to SNL after all these years (or maybe not).

• In other comedy news, Hannibal Buress is getting written about in the Times (as part of it’s new regular comedy column)!

• It’s about time someone explored why humans’ biggest potential foe is the octopus.

• A look back at the reign and downfall of Muammar Qaddafi.

• Mike Bloomberg’s disdain for and condescension to OWS is getting old and ridiculous.

• Another reason to dislike the Redskins.

• ESPN’s go-to SEC profiler Wright Thompson looks at one of the weekend’s big winners: Les Miles.

• Et tu, Jon Huntsman?

• Daniel Kahneman has a new book out, and William Easterly is excited about it.

• A truly disturbing story about how the Internet helped cause–and then solve–a murder.

• Finally, an awesome look at how the way we’ve followed baseball hasn’t changed as much as you’d think in the last century.

Monday Medley

What we read while deciding not to publish our own story about not having sex with Christine O’Donnell…

• As New York baseball fans, we were stunned and saddened by the news of the passing of legendary scorekeeper Bill Shannon. Tim, who was fortunate enough to meet Bill, wrote a brief tribute on his Tumblr. The best tribute, not surprisingly, came from MLB.com’s Marty Noble, with others pouring in from fellow scorer Billy Altman, Wallace Matthews, Ed Coleman, and Tom Boorstein.

• As for some other sports links, David Schoenfield tries to answer who the best postseason pitcher in MLB history is (hint: it wasn’t Cliff Lee even before Game 1). In direct contrast to what Tim McCarver said during Saturday night’s Game 3, here’s statistical backing for using a three-man rotation in the playoffs. And in other counterintuitive statistical analysis, Peter Keating argues that it is possible to give 110 percent.

• Speaking of statistical analysis, the Mets hired sabermetrics-advocate Sandy Alderson as their new General Manager this week. Here is an extensive (and excellent) interview of Alderson back when he was CEO of the Padres. Rumor has it that he’s going to bring along Paul DePodesta to the front office, who was prominent in Moneyball (a book we’ve invoked a few times so far), and has his own blog.

• With Conan O’Brien’s new TBS show just a week away, Vanity Fair published an excerpt from Bill Carter’s book about January’s Tonight Show fallout. As usual, Jay Leno and NBC do not come off well. Also from Vanity Fair, a profile of the real Sean Parker, a/k/a Justin Timberlake’s character in The Social Network.

• In the spirit of Halloween, Tim and Josh posted about the best candies. New York City candy shops have some interesting selections. This is a good time to link to Candy Blog, which, you know, is a blog about candy.

• Some pseudo-sociology about the rise and fall of the modern hipster.

• John S wasn’t the only one to take on Malcolm Gladwell’s social media bashing. The Hairpin did it this week, from the perspective of Gladwell.

• We don’t usually link to college newspapers/magazines that we may or may not have used to write for, but Kevin Lincoln’s feature on Mike Posner and what Lincoln calls “the college-white-boy rap phenomenon” in Duke’s Towerview is worth the read.

• We don’t think it should be too hard to interest you in the best cover versions of ’90s TV theme songs. If nothing else, this just made us appreciate the Duck Tales theme all the more.

• We’re against negative campaign ads — unless they reference Billy Madison.

• Speaking of campaigns, here are some of the signs from this weekend’s Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear.

Monday Medley

What we read while taking our talents to South Beach…

• LeBron James’ Decision generated all kinds of fallout last week, and not just among those burning jerseys and writing insane open letters in Comic Sans font. Joe Posnanski was mostly upset for not seeing it coming, and added some thoughts on Gilbert’s letter. Bill Simmons listed a torrent of angry emails about the decision, and in a podcast with Dan Le Batard, called it the cruelest thing any athlete had ever done to a franchise (meanwhile, Miami writer Le Batard was one of the only people to defend the decision). Will Leitch said it actually made being a sports fan feel stupid. Cleveland native Scott Raab took aim at ESPN. Brian Windhorst broke down how the new Big Three came together–a Big Three, by the way, that “breaks the linear equation” for certain Expected W-L formulas.

• Critically beloved The Daily Show allegedly has a problem with women, to which the women of the show responded. There may be something to the criticism, though, but only because women are not funny.

• Chris Jones’ investigation into Terry Kneiss’ incredible Price Is Right bid is terrific if inconclusive. At least it explains Drew Carey’s Buck-like lack of enthusiasm.

• We never thought we’d read another profile of former Memphis star Shawne Williams, especially not one that describes Larry Bird as a “basketball-legend-who-looks-like-an-old-lesbian.”

• Apparently, all rock stars are not that rich.

• “Irresistible”? Yes. “Teenage nonsense”? Never!

Monday Medley

What we read while fumbling the football…

Conan Says Goodbye with Will Ferrell & Freebird – watch more funny videos

• Conan O’Brien hosted his last Tonight Show on Friday (you can’t see, but a tear is slowly falling to the ground). His farewell was funny and poignant, and his ratings were huge. Some think that the creative stride initiated by his firing could be a turning point in his career.

• Shortly after John S worried that the Supreme Court was going to make a terrible decision, they made a different terrible decision.

• In a big move that’s probably too-little-too-late, The New York Times will now charge for their online content. Well, looks like we won’t be seeing the NYT on Monday Medley anymore (starting in 2011, of course)!

• That means we have to sneak in our links to NYT Magazine NOW, including this feature on thriller “author” (the quotation marks and condescendingly implied sarcasm are editorial) James Patterson and Ammon Shea’s On Language on the potential for spelling reform via texting. Shea’s piece is a bit of a foil to Christopher Hitchens’ very On Language-esque article (and we say that because it, too, has the heading, “On Language”) from this month’s Vanity Fair, dissecting the use of “like.”

• One of us is from Staten Island and now lives close to the Jersey Shore. In other words, he’s just living the dream.

• We’ve been really enjoying Charles P. Pierce’s blog at Boston.com, and this post’s title, which is almost as long as the post itself, is perfect in taking a shot at fellow Bostonian, Bill Simmons.

Monday Medley

What we read while Cheney was keeping us quiet:

• Ever heard of the BerkShare? It’s just one of several local currencies that have cropped up due to the recession.  Speaking of the economy, if you haven’t read it already, this New York Magazine piece describing the dynamic amongst President Obama’s economic advisors is definitely worth a read.

• This New York Times Magazine cover story on whales raises interesting questions regarding animal psychology and the similarities between whales and humans (who knew whales dreamed?). It reminds us of two very diverse things: 1. This February New York Review of Books examination of ant civilizations; and 2. Comedian Brian Regan on whale communication.

• Earlier this week, Josh called on readers to sympathize with their shorter companions. Taking a slightly different perspctive, “The Tall Book” chronicles the difficulties of being a tall woman. Once again, height matters.

• Here again is the Michael Lewis story on AIG that Vanity Fair ran. If the economic downturn has been good to anyone, it’s Lewis, who has apparently been writing nonstop since last December. We’re starting to wonder if maybe he engineered this whole thing to promote his book.

• Hmmm….There was one more thing, but alas, my mind wanders….

The Blame Game

For anyone interested in what happened at AIG last year, Michael Lewis’ Vanity Fair story is a must-read. Lewis, author of Liar’s Poker, is very good at making complicated investment procedures intelligible to the uninitiated.

The most interesting thing about the story is how it illustrates the grand lesson of last year’s economic collapse: Everyone screwed up and no one person is to blame.

Compare, as Lewis does, the AIG collapse, which has largely vanished from the public memory, to the Bernie Madoff case, which arouses everyone’s ire. Madoff is a simple, if tragic, story: One guy conned a bunch of people into giving him money, and then used the money for himself and his family, leaving nothing for his clients. Madoff is a thief and a criminal and deserves to serve every year of the 150 on his sentence.