Josh Brodesky is clearly a sharp guy and a solid writer, but there are occasions when it's difficult to understand what we're exactly supposed to be so upset about. Some of his columns are clearly softballs, like Sunday's exegesis of a poll posted on pseudo-news outlet the Huffington Post, not worth giving too much thought, and I get those...I post pictures of monkeys on a semi-regular basis. However, today's attack on the Regional Transportation Authority and former Oro Valley mayor Paul Loomis starts off really intense and sticks to that bubbling rage, even when it's not clear what exactly is the moral crime being perpetrated here.

Paul Loomis, you just got Brodeskyed!

Not that I have any particular affection for the show How I Met Your Mother, but it seems wrong to back into TV episodes and insert advertisements for new products, especially for the talking animal movie Zookeeper. However, this could just be an unfortunate long-term effect of George Lucas' willingness to edit his movies retroactively and it's still sort of fun to blame him for things. However, this will be far less amusing/tolerable when Rick drinks a Powerade while watching the plane take off in Casablanca.

[Gawker]

"William Breathes" of Denver's Westword does a great job of explaining why the Weekly is looking for a marijuana critic and mentions that it isn't necessarily the free ride of smoking all day that it might seem to be.

For a remarkable second week, newish KFMA morning show host Fook has allowed me to come on his program and discuss pop culture news or something. Plus, I have a really awesome theme song. Tune in at 8:10 for my appearance, and stay tuned for TucsonWeeklyTV.com star Michelle Lesko (a.k.a. Cardboard Shell) at 9.

Goodnight, sweet clown prince. Glenn Beck ends his Fox News program tonight. It's like a perfect storm, a Archduke Ferdinand moment, and a socialist conspiracy on fire all in one. You won't be the only one tearing up tonight, Glenn. Well, maybe you might, but you're still just a man who loves his country, maybe too much.

When I think of all of James Franco's crappy attempts accomplishments, I get a headache: an MFA, two PhDs, hosting the Oscars, playing himself on TV and in movies, and now a music video? If you'll notice, though, he's not even singing. He's just being James Franco once again.

Who knew that former President Bill Clinton was such an authority on My Little Pony, going three for three on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me this weekend? I don't want to think how he acquired this information, but he does share this field of knowledge with my three old daughter who also answered all three correctly. Congratulations, sir.

Wait Wait Don't Tell Me comes to Tucson on March 15th of 2012. Tickets are on sale now.

It's hard out there for food reviewers, Liu. We're sympathetic.

The Taichung branch of Taiwan High Court on Tuesday sentenced a blogger who wrote that a restaurant’s beef noodles were too salty to 30 days in detention and two years of probation and ordered her to pay NT$200,000 in compensation to the restaurant.

The blogger, surnamed Liu (劉), writes about a variety of topics — including food, health, interior design and lifestyle topics — and has received more than 60,000 hits on her Web site.

After visiting a Taichung beef noodle restaurant in July 2008, where she had dried noodles and side dishes, Liu wrote that the restaurant served food that was too salty, the place was unsanitary because there were cockroaches and that the owner was a “bully” because he let customers park their cars haphazardly, leading to traffic jams.

The restaurant’s owner, surnamed Yang (楊), learned about Liu’s blog post from a regular customer, and filed charges against her, accusing her of defamation.

[Taipei Times]

Gannett Blog published a corporate memo sent to more than 20,000 Gannett employees today to announce the newspaper company plans to layoff 700 workers this year:

While we have sought many ways to reduce costs, I regret to tell you that we will not be able to avoid layoffs. Accordingly, approximately 700 employees within USCP, or about 2% of our company’s overall workforce, will be let go. Publishers will notify people today and we will make every effort to reach everyone by end of day. It is important to note that these decisions do not reflect individual performance and we thank and respect those employees for their work. We will do everything we can to help them and to minimize the impact on our other employees going forward. In an effort to reduce the number of people being let go, there will be furloughs in the coming months but they will be limited only to those on the USCP corporate payroll who make over a certain salary. You will be notified by your publisher if you are among this group.

The blog describes this as the biggest layoff since 2009, when the company eliminated 1,400 jobs.

Gannett Blog:

Today's cuts came after many newspaper workers took one-week unpaid furloughs during the current quarter; virtually all took a furlough in the first quarter. And they come three months after GCI disclosed that Chairman and CEO Craig Dubow got paid $9.4 million last year — twice what he earned in 2009. Other senior executives also got huge raises, company documents show.

Dubow's pay included a $1.75 million cash bonus, based partly on his success in reducing costs through layoffs, furloughs and other austerity measures. Bonuses awarded other executives were also calculated according to that same formula.