Just in case you’d forgotten what a d-bag John Edwards is, he’s back in the news! Edwards has a federal indictment looming over his head and could be facing jail time. The Edwards camp, and what a sorted camp that must be, is debating whether they should go for a plea deal or risk a trial. The U.S. attorney in Raleigh is looking to indict Edwards on felony campaign finance charges, which Edwards’ lawyers consider new, unproven territory. One lawyers calls them “theories.” (Guess what buddy, gravity is a theory, too.) Politico has all the sorted details, including a 100 year-old heiress named Bunny who provided some of the cash to keep the Edwards affair on the down-low. Stay classy, Washington!
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Speaking of classy, Urban Outfitters, purveyor of hipster knock-offs for the suburban set, has been caught ripping off the designs of an independent jeweler selling her stuff on Etsy, purveyor of genuine hipster everything. IMakeShinyThings creates silver state and country shapes with hearts punched into them and sells them under the World of Love line for $55. Urban Outfitters must have thougth this was a pretty slick idea, because they’re now selling their own silver state necklaces with hearts punched in them for $19. On trying to click through to the purchase page at Urban Outfitters, I’m getting a blank screen, so maybe they bought a clue last night.
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Gillian Welch is neither a crook, nor a liar, but she does have a new album coming out, which I bet is going to be pretty awesome. The Harrow & the Harvest, a 10-track album of Welch’s usual country fare, comes out on June 28 and she and David Rawlings are currently on tour. If you haven’t seen Welch and Rawlings perform together, be sure to check them out — you won’t be disappointed.
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Speaking of not being disappointed, Stereogum has Radiohead’s 20 Best Cover Songs available for download now. It includes four Neil Young songs. Go grab it!
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Every year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, takes on a personal challenge. Last year, he wore a tie everyday. Bully for him! This year, he’s killing goats, pigs and chickens. What the WHA?!?! Yeah, so apparently Zuck has pledged to only eat meat he kills personally. Now that doesn’t mean going out and hunting a dear or a badger, it means going to a farm and cutting the throat of a goat with a knife. I shit you not…
Now, this sounds batshit — I mean completely batshit — crazy, but there is a reason for this madness. Zuckerberg wants to know where his food comes from and thinks people should be more mindful that the food they eat comes from a living being. It’s actually kind of fascinating stuff…
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Ben Huh, the mastermind behind I Can Has Cheezburger and the colossal media juggernaut that is the Cheezburger network is looking to do for the news industry what he has done for funny cat photos, fails and memes. In a blog post on his personal site and a follow-up on interview with ReadWriteWeb, Huh talks about the Moby Dick Project which aims to collaborate with people in the new industry to bring breaking news dissemination and news collection more in line with how we consume content on the web. Huh’s gripes include news front home pages that try to cater to everyone visiting the site and don’t satisfy anyone, wire stories that include one paragraph of updated news and then several paragraphs of old stuff and a total lack of social media awareness to help curate news based on what friends or influencers are reading. Moby Dick is a side project and Huh has no plans to leave the awesomeness of the Cheezburger.
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Finally, the hype around HTML 5 is about to get realz y’all with the introduction of Hype for Mac. Hype is a WYSIWYG editor for HTML5 that allows users to create animation and interactive content in HTML5. Anyone who’s used Adobe products will get this pretty much straight away. The software runs $29 and is available in the Mac App Store. The startup foundry has a nice interview with the dudes who started Hype. They come from Apple…
