Cole Abaius at Film School Rejects probably thought he was posting about entertainment media when he answered critics of Hollywood blogs. But the points he raises about the evolving media culture – that ethics are often skewed for the sake of the scoop, even beyond the blogosphere – dovetail into some similar criticisms leveled by former RNC head Ed Gillespie.

Gillespie illustrates his point about media bias by telling the story of a reporter – with whom he had a longstanding working relationship – appearing on Hardball. The reporter called an open letter penned by Gillespie “disingenuous,” though he later privately admitted he hadn’t even read it. But the immediacy of television forced some type of response to a Chris Matthews question.

Part of Gillespie’s advice for handling the slanted media is to simply avoid the slanted media through the use of technology – a tactic embraced even by those politicians most beloved by the slanted media.

I can’t figure out whether this is a joke or not – a Harvard economist blames Twitter for the economy’s downturn, matching the rise in Twitter use with the falling Dow Jones average.

The article makes some provocative points – for instance, goes one theory, since Twitter is relatively new to the social media universe, many people are still trying to get the hang of it, leading to hours of non-productive use and monitoring by people looking for a productive use for micro blogging.

On the other hand, I’d suggest the opposite cause/effect relationship may be true. With a down economy, people are looking for new ways to make money – leading to the expanded use of a new communications device.

McDonald’s is well-known for their targeted marketing – including a big push for their Filet-o-Fish sandwich each year around this time to capitalize on Catholics who don’t eat land meat during Lent. But this year, they are apparently mixing that with subtle, pro-fish messages:

Vivek Kundra came back to the Obama Administration this week – his brief leave of absence came on the heels of an FBI raid of his old office and two arrests.

Before his gig as the Chief Information Officer of the country, Kundra served as the Chief Technology Officer for the District of Columbia. He wasn’t the target of the FBI investigation, but his information systems security officer was arrested on bribery charges.

Privacy and online security will be among the biggest communication issues faced by the Obama Administration – with Google, a key Obama Administration ally, at the center of the storm. When taken along with the former lobbyists appointed to departments they used to lobby and cabinet nominees who couldn’t be bothered paying taxes, the trend of lip service over ethics is more than a little disturbing.

The thing about government and… the media… computer sites… conservatives ought to… if you were watching Animal Planet the other night…

Aww, forget this. It’s March Madness time.

“Now he’s got Paulie as a partner. Any problems, he goes to Paulie. Trouble with a bill, go to Paulie. Trouble with cops, deliveries, Tommy, he calls Paulie. But now he has to pay Paulie.”

–Goodfellas

I’m not thrilled that AIG is using $165 million in taxpayer dollars to fund bonuses. I’m even more mad that the government is bailing out businesses without checking where the money is going. But taking government bailout money is a little like taking money from the mob to keep your business afloat.

The AIG saga began in September, when the insurer asked for $85 billion, and continued in November, when the government gave them even more. AIG turned heads soon after with an executive retreat, and cancelled a second only after intense criticism. And now, it turns out, AIG has awarded lush bonuses to the folks who ran them into the ground – bonuses that were part of contracts signed a while back and which AIG is legally forced to honor. Clearly, they weren’t worth a bailout to begin with.

“Business bad? F*** you, pay me. Had a fire? F*** you, pay me.”

But President Obama and Congress are asking AIG to retract the bonuses – which would, of course, open them up for lawsuits that could be potentially more expensive. In essence, they’re changing the terms of the bailout after handing out the money – and there’s not much AIG can do about it now.

“Also, Paulie could do anything – like run up bills on the joint’s credit. And why not? Nobody’s going to pay for it anyway.”

The currency of politics isn’t money, but votes, and every politician only cares about re-election and legacy. The grandstanding by Congressional leaders, the President, and New York Attorney General/Gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo is meant to win votes rather than stabilize a business.

Given those divergent goals of business people and politicians, the bailouts could wind up being more trouble for AIG than they were in before.

“Then, finally, when there’s nothing left, when you can’t borrow another buck from the bank, you bust the joint out. You light a match.”

I’m surely late to the party learning about this, but apparently there’s a movement to rename today’s holiday. And no, Massachusetts, not Evacuation Day – some would rather recognize March 17 as “Shamrock Day.”

I learned about it from Alamo City Pundit and caught it on some other blogs but, knowing how whisper-down-the-lane works, needed more information. Trouble is, for all the mentions I found of Shamrock Day – including from Hallmark and the Disney Channel – there wasn’t much in the way of explanation as to why the shift.

I finally found a short item in the Waco Tribune Herald which confirmed my hunch that “Shamrock Day” is favored by those who would rather not honor a religious figure, St. Patrick. They will, however, honor Irish Culture.

Here’s where it gets funny. St. Patrick is the patron Saint of Ireland. Honoring Irish culture on a day named for St. Patrick is a recognition of the Roman Catholic tradition in Ireland. But so is wearing green; the green on the Irish flag represents the Catholic natives, while the orange represents Protestants. (Sidebar: if you’re wearing orange today in Boston, God help you.) And of course, the Shamrock has become the symbol of the day because of the legend that St. Patrick used it to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity as he was spreading Catholicism on the Emerald Isle.

In an attempt to expunge religious references from today’s holiday, the seekers of political correctness have replaced St. Patrick with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. I don’t like to push my religion on anyone, but this is like replacing Easter with “Cross Day” or Christmas with “Manger Day.” It certainly doesn’t do any more to promote inclusion – assuming the original name for the day was exclusionary to begin with.

Perhaps they had too much green beer?

When I was in elementary school, on St. Patrick’s Day I would always write Seamus O’Eltringham on my tests and worksheets. The teachers thought it was cute, and I didn’t lose credit. “Eltringham” is Welsh, but I’m more Irish than I am anything else, so I felt comfortable doing it.

I awoke today to hear about President Barack Obama’s… excuse me, President Barack O’Bama’s Irish ancestry. There’s a comment about political opportunism and messaging in there, but it takes a back seat – because for one day a year, everyone gets license to be Irish – even folks with a lot less Irish in them than our President.

Of course, this may be taking it a bit to far…

…But it’s good for a laugh. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

The Politico Mafioso featured a great video from special Hot Air correspondent Jason Mattera asking Rep. Charlie Rangel about the perks of being a Congressman. The Congressman is less than amused:

USA Today has some advice for CNBC’s Jim Cramer – but does Jim Cramer really need it?

By most accounts, Cramer looked foolish in his back-and-forth with The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart. To stick up for President Obama’s economic policies and take shots at CNBC Stewart found footage of Cramer giving bad stock advice. Cramer shot back by calling Stewart a comedian and an idiot; Stewart aired more clips of Cramer giving advice that proved to be wrong… you’ve probably seen the clips on the news shows, so we won’t re-hash details.

The whole fracas reminds me of the phrase, “Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the pig likes it.” USA Today chides Cramer for ignoring that old adage:

“Stewart may be a comic, but he’s an incredibly smart and increasingly influential one – a media darling whose comments get amplified by print, TV, and the internet… Cramer gave Stewart time and ammunition to launch a broader, more damaging attack on CNBC itself.”

USA Today also offers three “rules” for Cramer to avoid similar conflicts; but in doing so they seem to have forgotten another rule: “All publicity is good publicity.”

Cramer certainly didn’t “win” his debate with Stewart and Stewart was able to serve some red meat to his audience by mocking opposition to President Obama and creatively framing issues. But in entering into a feud with Stewart, clips of Cramer’s show were shown to a wider audience than he probably normally has – not just Stewart’s viewers, but also the viewers of the TV shows that covered each salvo and eagerly awaited the next. In fact, they probably both got what they wanted out of it.

Jim Cramer isn’t going to lose his job at CNBC, and CNBC’s credibility will not be hurt by Comedy Central. So being drawn into this controversy might not have been such a bad thing – even if he didn’t win, Cramer had nothing to lose.