Some recommended reading: Paul Krugman has an article in The New York Times that claims that all this talk of drilling for oil in Alaska is not the work of the oil companies. That oil, he says (referencing some earlier N.Y.T. reportage), would cost too much to tap. Says Krugman, the demands to drill are the work of a bizarre coalition: Union leaders want to show their memberships that they can force the government to do what it takes to create jobs…and certain right-wingers want to pass it just because it'll piss off conservationists. This is either brilliant insight or crackpot analysis by Krugman. Judge for yourself by clicking here.
As you may recall, we've been waiting, as if for Godot, for The Game Show Network to run the two episodes of Press Your Luck in which an unemployed air conditioning mechanic named Michael Larsen won over $110,000. We still don't know when that might be…but we do know that GSN is currently taping an all-new, higher-tech version of the show, which they're calling Whammy! They taped two pilots — one with original PYL host Peter Tomarken, one with Todd Newton, who emcees another of their original series, Hollywood Showdown. They picked Newton…and we'll see how he does and what they've done to our beloved Press Your Luck when the new version debuts on April 15. One does suspect that if they don't air the Larsen episodes soon, in order to promote Whammy!, they never will.
Jim Hanley calls my attention to a recent piece by Ron Rosenbaum that updates the 1971 article I mentioned here twelve hours ago. Here's that link.
And speaking of hackers, Slate Magazine recently got taken in by an e-mail hoax. This has led to this interesting article about their search to find the prankster…and this interesting article that describes, in layman's terms, how e-mail can be spoofed. Well worth checking out.