The wire-service headline: "US Internet users staying connected during sex: study." (Lede: "Computer security firm PC Tools late Wednesday released a study showing that nearly a quarter of US residents think it is fine to be 'plugged in' to the Internet during sex.") The official release touting the poll: "More Americans believe it is acceptable to be 'plugged in' while honeymooning (29%) than during a wedding (6%) or a religious service (8%)"; a find-and-replace on the term "sex" only finds the word buried in the boring bit about the poll's methodology. Whew! (For now, at least.)

TransUnion is fighting tooth and nail to prevent legislation that would prevent employers from using credit histories during the course of employment screening, what with the economy being as lousy as it is and people being more likely to have dings on their records these days. The company is even going so far as to attempt sleights-of-language in their efforts! The problem, of course, comes when that sort of trickery actually works, as it almost did with one poor Illinois legislator who apparently didn't understand the specific reasons for the bill's existence before allowing a lobbyist to goad him into suggesting some modifications.

13. "The sun is shining everyday, but it's far away / Over the world is [unintelligible syllable that sounds like 'blehhh']" ("The sun is shining everyday, but it's far away / Over the world is death," from OneRepublic's "All The Right Moves")

Look, a new word to describe The New New Journalism! "Churnalism" is "journalism that churns out articles based on wire stories and press releases, rather than original reporting," according to the neologism-spotting site WordSpy. Now all we have to do is figure out what to call sites that churn out half-literate articles based on Google Trends results, yet still manage to be indexed by Google News, and we'll be all set as far as having at least of my two media-related reasons for despair (of today) properly identified!

In preparation for a possible strike by American Airlines' flight attendants, with whom the company is negotiating a new contract, AA is scouring the greater Dallas-Fort Worth area for 4,000 of what it's calling "volunteers" who can undergo a 17-day training program and then report to the skies for snack-handling and pillow-distributing duties. The word "volunteers" doesn't imply "no pay" to just me, does it? Or is it just American's attempt to appear all "let's roll up our sleeves and get to work, comrades" about what looks to be a somewhat pitched battle between labor and management? [Pic via]