Conservative pundit Armstrong Williams recently admitted to taking money from the President to promote his policies. It's a good thing we have top-notch journalists at CNN's "Crossfire" who can get to the bottom of this and show the public how bad this is. Or maybe they can just lob softballs at him for half an hour and be part of his (and Bush's) damage control. Even the "from the left" guy on Crossfire went easy on him! Jon Stewart is proved right once again.

NEW YORK One day after Tucker Carlson, the co-host of CNN's "Crossfire," made his farewell appearance and two days after the network's new president made the admirable announcement that he would soon kill the program altogether, a television news miracle occurred: even as it staggered through its last steps to the network guillotine, "Crossfire" came up with the worst show in its 23-year history.

This was a half-hour of television so egregious that it makes Jon Stewart's famous pre-election rant seem, if anything, too kind. This time "Crossfire" was not just "hurting America," as Stewart put it, by turning news into a nonsensical gong show. It was unwittingly, or perhaps wittingly, complicit in the cover-up of a scandal. (Read the whole story)

Here's the press release - I'm glad they're going to stop dragging the good name of TechTV through the mud. The two new shows that they're adding will make the network worse than it already is (if that's possible). I've said it before, but now it's official. TechTV is dead.

I haven't listened to it yet, but the old TSS gang got together at Mac Expo and Leo recorded it here. Dan Huard's new site, Scopetech.net, aims to help fill the void that TechTV left.

I've been listening to the 1950s sci-fi radio program, X Minus 1. It's pretty fun so far. I've listened to about half of the second episode (the first episode was 404'd). I heard about it on the Engadget podcast. It's set in 1987 on board a spaceship headed for another solar system. Five ships have been lost trying to make this trip, but the captain thinks he can do it. If you're offended by bad language, then watch out. The salty old spaceship captain does at one point say st***d id**t.

Update: I should also link to the main site, RadioLovers.com. There are lots of cool programs like Abbott & Costello, Amos & Andy, Avenger, Batman, Buck Rodgers, Calling All Cars, etc. And it's all free.

Dan Huard: Life as a TechTV/G4 Employee - Dan is the guy who screened my call when I was on The Screen Savers. If I had called after G4 took over I probably wouldn't have been on, since they've adopted a policy of no geeks and no technical questions. I also thought it was funny how Dan says that some of the new hosts have been banned from answering live calls because they know jack squat about computers. Here is a good article from Wil Wheaton about how things worked at G4 when he was there. So sad.

(Extra geeky bonus link: Leo Laporte comments on Slashdot in reaction to the post linking to Dan's article)

Kansas City Star | 12/28/2004 | Walker leads O'Hara charge by Cole Young

Nice work, Cole!

Sara gave me America: the Book for Christmas and it's been my favorite gift so far (although this hat was very fun, too). The Daily show is in reruns for two weeks, so this book really hits the spot. My dad asked me, "Is this all satire, or is there anything worthwhile in there?" I had to reply, "I don't like the way you frame that question." This book is fairly crass in places. It makes fun of our current government, our founding fathers, even the constitution, but it does it in a way that subtly points out where we've gone wrong. Writing this in the form of a textbook was brilliant. They even manage to make fun of textbooks quite a bit. Click on the picture to the right and you can search the text of the entire book and even browse through it's pages.

Peace on earth, good will to men.

For those of you who like buying things from Amazon, but have always wished that each purchase would give me money, I give you my Amazon search page.

Sara and I watched 8 Mile this weekend. It was a pretty decent flick. I think that in the future, all international disputes should be settled with rap battles like in 8 mile. I wish someone would compose some battle raps involving foreign policy and post them in the comments.

I've been learning a new game recently. And by new I mean that the game is 3000 years old. Go is a two player board game originating in China. The rules are pretty simple, but the strategy can get very intense. GoBase.org is a good site for more information, including a good introduction to the rules. This other site has some good interactive lessons (requres Java). I've been playing the game on my Pocket PC and routinely getting my butt kicked, so I'm going through the lessons to see if I can get any better.

Go is known as Weiqi in China, or .