The Mainstream Media is really hoping that the presidential election will be the ticket to higher TV ratings and more newspaper sales because, man, they could really use the help. But the results so far aren't too encouraging. Instead of an explosion of people rushing home after work to catch Brian Williams' reasoned analysis of election strategy, it turns out that those people are rushing to upstart internet sites, argumentative cable news programs, and trashy magazines for their campaign coverage. Which just goes to show that-barring a nip slip-not even Barack Obama's hallowed visage can save media platforms that are on their way down. Ratings for cable shows like Hardball and Countdown have "risen sharply" during the campaign. The Politico's website is blowing up, with more readers than "more than all but 13 American newspapers." Political ads are more popular on YouTube than political news broadcasts. Us Weekly saw a bigger bump with its Obama cover than actual political magazines did. And the nightly news broadcasts just keep sadly puttering along:

Esquire seems very earnestly convinced that their flashing e-Ink cover this October will revolutionize the print industry with awesome shifting pixels. There are only a few things holding back the revolutionary technology: it's thick as hell, it's not entirely flexible, the color on the e-paper is so bad that the magazine had to overlay a tinted sheet of plastic on the cover, and the magazine has to be delivered on refrigerated trucks. After these minor glitches are worked out, here comes the future! And while magazine readers might not like it, at least the new Esquire will be tailor-made for tech nerds:

Hawk-faced elderly man James Brady, the name-dropping veteran of 600 media outlets who has now eased into his retirement job as Forbes' "media columnist" (ha), is primarily skilled at being befuddled about the point of things (though he hasn't lost his name-dropping talent). So faced with an early copy of former crackhead-turned Times columnist David Carr's (well-reviewed) new book-which is not, as Brady hoped, a volume of media name-dropping-Brady panics in print like the senile Uncle Junior in The Sopranos: shoot the bad man and run hide in the closet! See, Brady really wanted this book to be a recitation by Carr of media inside-baseball stuff. "What a glorious read that would be, and what a column or two I could get out of it," he writes. But no-it's full of drug shit!

"A year ago, the conventional wisdom was, 'Yep, there are problems out there, but there’s still significant value.' Now, it’s 'Run away.'" [Times]

Jennifer Senior's affectionate profile of former coworker David Carr examines what the Times media reporter left out of his tell-all memoir of crack addiction, drug dealing and physical abuse: Being a big jerk to many of the women he drew into his orbit. Carr's many female friends, Senior said, were shocked to read about him choking his girlfriend, and probably also would have had trouble imagining with some of what got cut:

Lee Stranahan's post about lefty blogs ignoring the John Edwards affair was apparently the most highly trafficked story on the Huffington Post for at least two days. But when he crossposted the item to his "diary" on Daily Kos, it was suddenly not so popular! Go figure. The "liberal" militants there excoriated Stanahan in the comments, with one well-rated response declaring, "you are violating site standards referencing the Enquirer [and its Edwards coverage], a bannable offense." That's funny, because just a few years ago multiple Kos diarists trumpeted an unflattering Enquirer story about Bush, including one who said, "Sometimes the National Enquirer reports things better than the Washington Post." That person is still active on the site, but Stranahan is not so lucky!

Ha ha, China unblocked much of the internet this week as it moved to allow "free and unfettered" reporting around the Olympics, and look what happened: the entire country discovered that American "news" is full of lies written by cheap robots. This one was made by a cyclon photo director at Yahoo who wants the world to believe that China is still slaughtering people in Tiananmen Square, using furries. See, communists? This sort of madcap fun could be yours if you had a First Amendment! [Guardian]

Perhaps the greatest thing in drama and comedy is that moment when a character totally unloads verbally in the worst possible way. Freak-outs, hissy-fits, last-nerve explosions... Nothing is more entertaining. And, in a freaky way, nothing is more nurturing. So let us share our favorites, shall we? I'll get us started with one everyone loves.

Franz Kafka wrote dark, brilliant, surreal works of souls in crisis, bureaucracy run amuck, dehumanizing class systems-and a lot of dirty, sexy smut. Researches have discovered a bounty of porn in the great writer's notebooks, and they mean for you to read it. "Experts have unearthed a stash of explicit pornographic material belonging to German [he was Czech, actually] author Franz Kafka. The erotic material has been ignored by scholars anxious to preserve the writer's image. James Hawes, an academic and Kafka expert came across the material in copies of Kafka's journals in the British Library in London and the Bodleian in Oxford. Hawes said that the author's stash shows him as more human than a popular quasi-saintly writer. 'These are not naughty postcards from the beach. They are undoubtedly porn, pure and simple. Some of it is quite dark. It's quite unpleasant.'"

Our American kids love violence, especially when it comes in movie form. And the awesome violence of the PG-13 rated mega-super-ultra-blockbuster The Dark Knight is maybe the best movie violence ever! Loving, American parents appreciate that. But a wicked plot to deprive the little lads and lasses of funny little England of the magic of violence is underway. "The age rating given in Britain to the U.S. blockbuster movie "The Dark Knight" is inaccurate given its violence, a growing number of complaints contend. In addition to 70 complaints delivered to the British Board of Film Classification regarding the newest Batman film, Member of Parliament Keith Vaz criticized the government board for allowing young children to see it."

How much of a silly old ass do you have to be to get me to side with the terrible, slithering Hilton Clan? About the size of John McCain, I'd wager. The war-loving Republican nominee's ad comparing Senator Barack Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears (watch it here) has gotten Paris' mom Kathy Hilton to write a terse response today. Well, she likely had someone else write it, but still.

As a responsible New York weekend blog person I really should find something to say about this Times article about all the poor Manhattanites who can't unload their million-dollar one-bedroom apartments. But oh my God I don't care! Instead, here is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory recut to look like a movie about an evil drug pusher.

Yes, yes, the fearsome, spineless, gooey jellyfish are coming to get us. This weekend, the Times weighs in with this dread tale about how rising "swarms" of jellyfish worldwide means the death of the ocean. I can't really argue with that, since I don't visit the rest of the world (I am told it's rather humid in parts), but then there's this piece from CBS detailing how the floaty little blobs are causing absolute hell on a certain beach closer to home. "In the waters off Long Beach, N.Y., swimmers aren't the only ones enjoying the surf: Jellyfish are showing up in droves. 'We were here a few weeks ago and there were a lot of jellyfish. We didn't even go in the water. It was horrible,' one teen told CBS News correspondent Susan Koeppen. And with thousands being stung by jellyfish this summer, lifeguards at Long Beach are armed with spray bottles filled with alcohol and water to take away the pain, says Koeppen." That's some bullshit right there.

Bernie Mac's publicist spent much of last night dispelling rumors that the 50-year-old comedian has died. He was checked into a Chicago hospital with pneumonia Friday night, but she says he's still alive and responding well to treatment. A source close to Mac's family, however, describes his condition as "very, very critical."

Are you havin' a laugh? The Brits aren't great at that many things. I mean, geez, they let a bunch of freaking drunken farmers steal their best set of colonies right out from under them. But they are a funny lot! So let's celebrate their bizarre sense of humor this evening with our favorite bits of English mirth. As usual, I've got something obvious to get us started after Ye Olde Jump.

The Youtube user who brought us the terrifically popular "Ted Stevens: a Series of Tubes" video, is taking on awful Republican Presidential nominee John McCain in his latest creation. I think he takes a little too long to get to the McCain stuff, but it gets good (in a creepy, scary way) once he does. Check it out after the jump.

Even L.A. Police Chief William Bratton is keeping up on lesbian lovers Lindsay Lohan and DJ Samantha Ronson, and the couple would like him to kindly get them out of his dirty old mind. Bratton was explaining why he skipped a city task force meeting on curbing the paparazzi last week when he said, "If you notice, since Britney (Spears) started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris (Hilton) is out of town not bothering anybody, thank god; and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue." Now Linds and Sam are firing back at the meaty cop.

Author Salman Rushdie is pissed at the former British cop who wrote a tell-all about his time guarding the ladies' man of letters when he was under the threat of a big ol' fatwa from the Ayatollah-haha, he outlived you, jerk!-in 1989. "Rushdie told The Guardian that the book portrayed him as 'mean, nasty, tight-fisted, arrogant and extremely unpleasant.'" Said Rushdie, "In my humble opinion, I am none of those things [...] I am not trying to prevent him from publishing this stupid book, but if they publish it there will be consequences and there will be a libel action."

Our weekend trailers are usually about sci-fi and super heros and stuff going BOOM! But Barry Levinson's upcoming comedy What Just Happened?-starring Robert Deniro, Bruce Willis, Kristen Stewart, Stanley Tucci and John Turturro-looks pretty damn funny to me. My favorite part is that Willis plays himself, and is refusing to lose weight or shave his gigantic beard for a role. Clip after the jump.

The rumors are that Playgirl, that naked-man publication started in the 70s, will fold. We never actually read it, but always kind of liked the idea that it was around. It was ostensibly for girls, but maybe that was the heteronormative title—because come on, the gays have been (barely) keeping that thing afloat for years. [Mag Death Pool; Fishbowl]