Bugs gets Swanned

A round-up of items...
I mentioned the Plume case yesterday. Slate.com's Today's Papers notes that both the WP and NYT front "a federal appeals court upholding an earlier ruling that the NYT's Judith Miller and Time's Matthew Cooper should indeed head to the slammer unless they spill who outed a CIA agent to them. The NYT has said it will appeal. The LAT also fronts the case, though putting it in a bigger context: The paper guesses that the ruling will push along federal "shield-law" legislation, which would allow reporters to stay mum about their sources."

Read the ruling itself.
Meanwhile, Slate.com’s media writer, Jack Shafer, urges a new attorney to represent the two.
Memo to Cooper and Miller [Slate.com]
Fire Floyd Abrams. Hire Bruce Sanford.

Totally unrelated...

A New Model Army Soldier Rolls Closer to the Battlefield [NYT, 2.16.2005]
The Pentagon predicts that robots will be a major fighting force in the American military in less than a decade.

I mentioned the indecency fines are likely to increase. Just wait, because you've not seen anything yet. The FCC wants children shielded from cellphone smut [Reuters via Yahoo News]

All of the press is working to deal with the new Web world -- and not just in my little niche of the world. The Financial Times reports that Rupert Murdoch and some 50 other senior News Corp. executives will meet in  New York today to map out an Internet strategy for the global media company in light of the sharp growth in Web advertising and changing viewing habits.

The most smutty story of the day...
Blogger digs up racy photos of ex-WH correspondent Gannon [WP, 2.16.2005].
Escort-service photos of former Talon News White House correspondent Jeff Gannon (real name: James Guckert) have deepened the debate over blogging and the tactics used by bloggers, says Howard Kurtz. Accuracy in Media's Cliff Kincaid says: "The campaign against Gannon demonstrates the paranoid mentality and mean-spirited nature of the political left." John Aravosis of Americablog.org tells Kurtz: "The larger issue is how did someone like this get access to the White House." Here is the Americablog link, if you want to see it for yourself.

And finally...

Bugs Bunny gets Swanned with a total makeover. (Fox, of course, have pulled all links to its horrible make-over reality television program.)

Warner Bros. Wants to Update Bugs [WSJ, 2.16.2005]
Does Bugs Bunny, animation's king of insult comedy, really need a sharper edge? Warner Bros. Apparently thinks so. The WB television network is hoping to prop up its slumping Kids' WB line-up by launching a new cartoon series this fall "based on 're-imagined' versions of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Tasmanian Devil, Lola Bunny, Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote," The Wall Street Journal reports. Warner has thus "created angular, slightly menacing-looking versions of the classic Looney Tunes characters for its new series, dubbed 'Loonatics' and set in the year 2772." While the new characters will retain the personality quirks of the original, they may have newly derived names like Buzz Bunny, the Journal says. 

Comments

[Xdm]

OMG. Hate it. The fun things about bugs are the biting remarks from a soft and fuzzy wabbit. THe "new" bugs looks way to anime. Creepy.

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