Watercooler Sensation

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Facebook Fights Bullies, Predators

• Facebook is getting serious about privacy and predators.
• More than 40 new safeguards are being put in place to prevent sexual predators and cyberbullies from abusing the site.
• Between Facebook and Myspace, there has been increasing concern that the networks are creating easy playgrounds for those wishing to prey on children. [BBC]
• So changes include banning convicted sex offenders, limiting older users’ ability to search for underage kids, and working on ways to verify ages and identities.
• Officials from Washington, D.C., and 49 states have signed on. Texas is holding out, hoping for more immediate age verification policies. [AP]
• Specific changes include:
• Requiring advertisers to comply with safety and privacy guidelines.
• Limiting tobacco and alchol ads from underage users.
• Remove groups involving incest, pedophilia, bullying, etc.
• Send warning messages when child may be giving personal data to adults.
• Automatically reviewing profiles when users change their age.
• Facebook also agreed to keep adding new technology and working to ensure children’s safety.
• “We’re entering a new era in social networking safety,” Blumenthal said. “This agreement is open-ended in envisioning advances in technology that will permit even stronger steps in the future toward protecting kids’ safety.”

Way to go Facebook, get rid of the creepers!

Getting Mooned

• It sounds like the premise for some B-grade sci-fi movie, but it’s true: NASA scientists yesterday say the Earth may have once had three moons. [Fox News]
• Many scientists believe our own moon was formed when a planet the size of Mars ran into the earth 4.5 billion years ago. So much matter was thrown into outer space that its gravity drew it together into a molten-hot mass, becoming what we now know as the Moon.
• Now researchers say some of that ejected matter may not have fused to the moon. In fact, some of it probably formed two baby moons at the fixed places in the Moon’s orbit where its gravity and the gravity of the earth would have suspended them in a stable position.
• Sound smart: Those fixed points in the orbit are called “Lagrangian points” or “Trojan points.”
• (This is basically the deal with a bunch of asteroids around Jupiter.)
• The baby moons would have looked like very, very bright stars to people on earth, if there had been any at the time.
• Scientists say the two little moons probably orbited Earth for 100 million years. Then gravitational tugs from other planets in the solar system would finally have sent them off course, where they crashed into the Moon or Earth. Or perhaps they just floated away…

In fact, come to think of it, does anyone remember the sci-fi television show “Three Moons Over Milford”?

Look Who Shares Our Crush On Jon Stewart

• In a survey last year by the PewResearchCenter, people were asked which journalists they admired most. At the top of the list: Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw…and The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart?
• The Project For Excellence In Journalism took note and decided to take a look at who’s watching the Daily Show, what they get when they tune in and just how popular the show really is. Yesterday they released a new report titled, “Journalism, Satire Or Just Laughs? The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Examined.” Here are some of the findings. [Project for Excellence In Journalism]
• 16% of all Americans say they watch either the Daily Show or its spin-off, The Colbert Report.
• Regular viewers score in the highest percentile of current affairs quizzes.
• The show’s main focus is, naturally, politics. U.S. foreign affairs and the Bush administration’s policies make up 47% of the show’s content.
• In fact, the Bush White House was the focus of almost a quarter (22%) of all the segments.
• Eight percent of the show’s segments focused on the media and the press – that’s twice as many stories as cable news shows run on the media.
• But keep in mind, it is a comedy show, not a news show. For that reason, some big news topics that didn’t lend themselves to satire or ridicule – the Virginia Tech shootings and the Minneapolis bridge collapse – weren’t mentioned at all.
• On the night the Virginia Tech shootings happened, remember how Stewart handled it: “Obviously for anybody who has been tuned to the television today, a horrible, horrible day. I have absolutely nothing to add that is insightful or anything. I will just do what I always do when faced with something that is that powerfully damaging to the emotional core: I will begin to repress it, and I will swallow it. And I imagine that thirty years from now someone will spill juice and I will freak the f*** out. So to that end, let’s move on as though the world is ok.”
• The top 5 stories covered by the Daily Show in 2007: The 2008 Campaign. Debate over Iraq Policy. Events in Iraq. The Fired US Attorneys. Global Warming.
• The top 5 people covered by the Daily Show: George Bush. Dick Cheney. Karl Rove. Larry Craig. Hillary Clinton.

Our question: How does one get a job where your only duties are to watch the Daily Show? Sign us up!

By the Numbers

A new National Geographic-sponsored study this week shows Americans are dead last when it comes to going green. The study looked at four categories – housing, transportation, consumer goods and food consumption. Americans in the first three cases were the least likely to pick the more environmentally friendly option. (When it comes to food, Japan beat us out for worst place, eating more meat and seafood than we do.) 100 points is a perfect score. [McClatchy]

60.0

The top score in the study, achieved by both Brazil and India.

56.1

China

54.3

Mexico

50.2

Great Britain

49.1

France

44.9

USA

Celebrities: Unfiltered

“We just had sex. There’s nothing sleazy ’bout a natural reflex. It’s nice and easy. No need to crane your necks. It’s all cool and breezy, baby. What’s a little bedroom traffic? Evening News is more pornographic!”

— Lyrics to the song “We Just Had Sex” from the musical “Passing Strange” that caused CBS affiliate station WCBS-TV to gasp in shock, feel a bit faint and cancel the performance from their Tony Awards pre-show. [Huffington Post]

Speed Round

MOVIE NEWS

How’s this for a killer cast? Johnny Knoxville. John Waters. Parker Posey. Awesome! [Hollywood Reporter]

MOVIE NEWS

Entertainment Weekly has first pics from the new Oliver Stone movie “W,” with Josh Brolin as the Commander in Chief. [Just Jared]

EWWWWWWWWWWW

Crash-test dummies are soooo last year. Saab uses real dead bodies. [The Local]

TRAGIC

The Georgia woman who won $5 million in the lottery last year was found stabbed to death in her home. Authorities have arrested her ex-boyfriend. [ABC News] [Lottery Curses]

DYING TO QUIT

The federal government’s new anti-smoking standards recommend the drug Chantix to help people quit. Oh, just ignore that whole “it makes you commit suicide” thing. [Fox News]

THAT’S JUST MEAN

Hackers broke into the Epilepsy Foundation’s website and placed hundreds of flashing images designed to induce seizures. The breach triggered severe migraines and near-seizure reactions in site visitors. [CBS]

BYE BYE EDDY

Eddy Arnold, creator of countrypolitan sound and one of country’s all-time greatest stars, died Thursday morning at age 89. [MSNBC]

$17,000

Amount NASA will pay you to lie in bed for three months straight. [Wired]

LOVE HER

“There’s this ridiculous thing that actresses are supposed to fit in to these sample sizes that models wear ... It’s really such an absurd idea. Shame on me every time I get frustrated with not being able to fit into one. I shouldn’t be able to.” – Actress Ginnifer “Big Love” Goodwin [People]

BAD IDEA

You don’t tug on Superman’s cape. You don’t spit into the wind. And you don’t smoke pot in the teachers’ lounge. [Fox News]

JACK DONAGHY FOR SENATE!

Actor Alec Baldwin tells 60 Minutes this coming Sunday that he’d like to one day run for office. [CBS News]

$2.4 MILLION

The amount a federal judge yesterday ordered jailbird quarterback Michael Vick to repay on a defaulted loan. [ABC News]

DON’T BLOG NOW, BUT...

After news of the blogger who twittered through his jail time in Egypt, you may have wondered if that country was the worst to blog from. Turns out, it is, along with Saudi Arabia, China, Iran, and Syria. Now you know. [Gawker]

TWO HOURS FOR A PIZZA?

Hundreds of people lined up for 23 cent pizza in Cleveland today, after Papa Johns ran an apology special for calling LeBron a crybaby. Stores had to end the promo early after running out of ingrediants. [Plain Dealer]

LIV LOSES THE LEACH

Liv Tyler split from her hubbie Royston after calling him a leach and saying she married too young. Ouch. [US Magazine]

DIY SURGERY

A man in Nebrasks saved his own life by performing a tracheotomy on himself with a steak knife. Ew. Docs say he should make a full recovery, but we’re scarred for life. [Fox]