Did you know that the White House staff photographer shoots Barack Obama every 1.4 seconds? That is a fact. Particularly when our "President" is traveling around the world, representing the interests of Kenya and the health care lobby. And here we have Ana Marie Cox (Daily Beast and Playboy contributor) and Jason Linkins (editor of the Huffington Post's Eat the Press) to make sense of all this abundant photograph evidence for us! READ MORE

Okay, I raved enough about the movie in my review, so this will be the last time I mention it, but if you're not living somewhere near a theater that's showing In The Loop, it's now available on On Demand. More details here.

You may have already seen this video of former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani telling the President of the United States to "shut up," which will certainly make you nostalgic for the civil and direct tone he set during his time in office. More interesting to me is the "other lesson" he passes along here: "Shut up when a cop is asking you questions. You don't insult him, you don't scream. My father taught me that when I was very young." Fair enough; the guy obviously knew what he was talking about.

"Minimalists tend to do better than maximalists. Flinty and workmanlike seem to win the day.... It is the self-proclaimed geniuses who suffer. Writers of long sentences seem to do worse than the writers of short ones." Tom Shone looks at what happens when writers go on the wagon. [Fair warning: The piece calls Faulkner and Fitzgerald "the Paris and Britney of their day" and puts Ernest Hemingway in the Amy Winehouse role. Still, probably worth a click.]

It's that time of year again!

Rights activists lashed out Friday at local officials who allowed hundreds of infants to be dropped from the roof of a mosque in western India in the belief that the fall — which ends when the babies are caught in a bedsheet — would ensure good health and prosperity for their families. The ritual at the Baba Umer Durga, a Muslim shrine, is believed to have been followed for nearly 700 years, and each year hundreds of people, both Hindus and Muslims, take part in the ritual.

There are so many things about this I don't get, starting with the way they shake the babies before they drop them. I mean, I can see tossing your baby into a waiting blanket below, but everyone knows you're not supposed to shake them, right?

File under "funny enough for a Friday afternoon." It's 80's synth-pop legend Gary Numan doing a spot for Scotland's "Go Greener" campaign. I chuckled, anyway. [Via Copyranter]

The West Coast Adventure Takes a Turn – An Unsought Date – Some Spiritual Guidance, in the Form of Books – Liplocked! – In the Buff – Locavore Etiquette – The Worst Thing Happens

Less than twenty-four hours after they ran into each other, Jay called Nicole to ask her out on a date. That was the word he used-"date." She tried to remember the last time a guy had said such a thing to her, and couldn't. READ MORE

How crafty is Barack Obama? "As for the alleged 'kookiness' of birthers, a true conspiracy theorist would surely believe that Obama deliberately started the birth-certificate business in order to make it easier to dismiss his opponents as deranged." Yes! That is how far up in your game the President is! In related news, only 42 percent of Republicans polled believe Obama was born in this country. What a miraculous age in which we live.

The Times cautionary ratings summary indicates much male genitalia.

By avant-music metrics, last night was pretty star-studded over at The Stone on Avenue C. Someone said Mike Watt of Minutemen and fIREHOSE fame was all up in the joint. And I spied Ches Smith from Xiu Xiu, in addition to club doyen John Zorn. Jenny Scheinman, a talent in way too many musical genres, was on the guest list. There were about a hundred or so other lesser-known folks crowding the tiny venue-which employs only a single, stationary electric fan for AC purposes. That fan at The Stone, it's almost like a really genius art installation that calls into question and then subverts the very construct of cooling off indoors during summer-that's how little it helps when the place is at standing-room capacity. But so: why were we all eager to endure that kind of punishment on a non-monsoon July 2009 eve? Maybe because Time Out and the Times both gave The Stone some love this week. Or was it due to the fact that last night's guitarist has a day job with Wilco? I can't say what impact these data points might have had in terms of the place being packed. I just listed them to get your attention, in case you normally tune out writing about avant-garde music. See how I did that? READ MORE

Jenny Diski, discussing documentaries in the London Review of Books, could just as easily be describing reality TV: "[W]hen documentaries return after every ad break, the narrator – voice-over or walking head – gives a full precis of the previous segments. You can't expect an audience to hold information, so it has to be reiterated, even though very little is being asked of the viewer in the first place. A simple point is made, and then it is enacted or pictured. Then it is said again. Don't get complicated. Documentaries are like mixed ability lesson plans. You teach to the least able who you never ask anything of. Audience numbers are all that counts, if they don't turn off, you've won."

It only looks like an Onion headline.

Related: Beerfest At The White House: What They Said

The Obama administration's "cash for clunkers" program, in which the government gives consumers a $3,500 or $4,500 discount to trade in their old vehicle and purchase or lease a new one, has essentially run out of money. How did it happen so quickly? One explanation is provided in the video above. Here's another, from a Democratic Senate aide. READ MORE

Late this afternoon, President Obama finally sat down over beers with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and Cambridge police sergeant James Crowley. The LA Times notes that "a small group of photographers and reporters was permitted to witness the meeting for about 30 seconds and from about 50 feet away — transmitting to the world a snapshot of Obama, in shirt sleeves, seated at an oval table with the now-famous pair. Gates and Crowley appeared to talk seriously, and at one point Obama gave a hearty laugh. Joining the three was Vice President Joe Biden, also in shirt sleeves." While the meeting was closed to the press, we've obtained a transcript. READ MORE

The New York Times has a collection of thirty obituary videos in which the still-breathing subjects have participated. (Ten more are in production.) The paper makes a guarantee to the living dead that it will not reveal their involvement until they have made the journey into the next world, but it did tell E&P that "the completed group includes one former president, a Nobel Prize winner, and a playwright." Since we've been kind of half-assing it all day and it doesn't seem like some bolt of inspiration is gonna come along between now and drinkin' time, let's just throw it out there: Who do you make for the BEYOND THE GRAVE segment?