America's newsrooms are in a state of excitement: the Pulitzer prizes for excellence in journalism have been awarded. Washington Post, winner in six categories, is said to be particularly febrile. "It's a pretty amazing atmosphere over here right now," one reporter told Media Mob. "The big editors are roaming around…

So Mark Penn, Hillary Clinton's doughy chief strategist, finally got booted from the campaign last weekend. The majority of her campaign team hated him for some time, so his departure will be welcomed by insiders. They felt that his strategy was unsuccessful, and they were right. But the specific reason for Penn's…

Like all good cabals, the New York Times' contingent of gays has some known members-and other figures who remain in the shadows, the uncertainty adding to the paranoia of homophobic right-wingers.

A certain right-wing blogger has a question for us, via email: "Are all of the contributors to Gawker homosexuals, because there's a level of superciliousness that must be directly tied to sexual frustration and the inability to bond with other human beings." Whoa! We'll have him know that Gawker employs a veritable…

Nielsen, one of the outfits which tracks where web users spend time online, also asks survey respondents a series of questions about themselves-including, interestingly, their political leanings. So which sites are the most liberal, and conservative? The blue bars represent the proportion of the site's audience who…

Sunnyvale computer-chip manufacturer AMD has strained ties between the United States and Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates. In 2005, AMD chips were discovered inside unexploded roadside bombs similar to the kind depicted in the propaganda clip below. An anonymous American official told the New York Times that…

Laszlo Bock, Google's vice president for Caucasian affairs people operations, didn't make a great impression on Congress when he lobbied for more H-1B visas last summer. Representative Maxine Waters asked Bock how many black employees Google had, and Bock proved curiously short of numbers. But Google has since…

It's no secret Google has painfully few black employees. Why lie about it? Laszlo Bock, Google's exceedingly Caucasian vice president of people operations, assured members of Congress last June that Google, which was lobbying for more H1-B visas for immigrant workers, had plenty of black employees. "We have a very…

Is former eBay CEO Meg Whitman impacting John McCain's immigration policy? Currently, the U.S. government refuses to raise the cap on H-1Bs, the visas which allow foreign engineers to work at American companies. This despite the fact that By 2010, Asians will account for 90 percent of the world's engineers. In this…

Perhaps the only thing sadder than seeing a friend with a Facebook broken heart in their mini-feed is spotting a friend who has Barack Obama as their Facebook picture. It's one thing to be a "fan" of Barack Obama, or even Michelle Obama, who is admittedly quite fierce. But when a friend changes their profile picture…

Why are the Republicans hiring, and then suspending, the likes of "consultants" Soren Dayton? Because they're desperate to catch up to the Democrats when it comes to building candidate support online, and will pay anyone armed with buzzwords, apparently. When lovable nutjob Ron Paul can pull a bigger audience of Web…

Who is Soren Dayton, the McCain campaign aide suspended over a YouTube link on Twitter? He's a consultant specializing in "'modern' ('new') media communications," an alumnus of the University of Chicago and the National Defense University, and a Republican true believer. Here he's pictured with evangelical…

Soren Dayton, an aide to the McCain campaign, posted a link to his Twitter account of an inflammatory YouTube mashup of Barack Obama's recent speech on race, remarking that it's a "Good video on Obama and Wright." The video mingles clips featuring Obama, wife Michelle, controversial pastor Jeremiah Wright, and…

The chattering classes continue to review Barack Obama's 45-minute speech today on race. The TV pundits' instant response was overwhelmingly positive, but it was almost certain to be. The current campaign narrative sort of required that response: they beat up on him for a week, then presented him the opportunity to…

Read the bestselling first novel critics are calling "One of the best books of the year" (New York Times Book Review, Time, Boston Globe). Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. Finally in paperback. $13.99/$15.50
CHECK OUT AN EXCERPT AND ENTER TO WIN A COPY OF THE BOOK.

Need proof that hairgel addict Gavin Newsom is, as the San Francisco Chronicle reports, setting up a run for Governor of California? Read the opinion piece he posted at Daily Kos last week advocating gay marriage. Newsom says it's too early to talk about any plans, but Chron investigative reporters put their union…

With Eliot Spitzer's announcement today that he was a client of a recently busted prostitution ring, and the speculation on his resignation flying, it's probably safe to say that his Governorship will not, in the end, be remembered as the glorious flowering of a new and reformed Albany. How the hell did it ever come…

Barack Obama won another caucus last weekend. Did you even notice? He holds a pledged delegate lead over Hillary Clinton, and it is looking increasingly unlikely that that lead will shrink as we approach the Democratic National Convention. Nor does it seem likely that either candidate will surge ahead in the upcoming…

Ha ha, you thought the endless nightmare battle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama was finally coming to a close, but Hillary just won Texas, Ohio and precious Rhode Island, gave a chipper speech and ordered aides to convene a special EMERGENCY conference call to slam Obama for doing crafty evil things to the…