Below are simple links to other interesting stuff I've come across on the web in the last day or two; they may or may not concern literature or photography, or indeed the arts at all. You can click here to learn more about how I compile this list and what software I use, if you're interested.

Chrysler spends over 100K in bailout money on insipid "Thank You" ads
Do you see now why so many people were arguing against the auto-industry bailout? And you can expect a lot more of this, too, as long as the douchebags who caused the mess still continue to be in charge there -- you can pretty much count on billions of your taxpayer dollars going towards pointless full-page newspaper ads and executive trips to the Caribbean. Congratulations, Bush -- you managed to squeeze in at least one more giant "F-ck you, American people" during your last month in office.

Yet another high-profile memoir turns out to be fake
What is it with so many Americans' obsession over a story having to be "true" before they'll pay any attention to it? After all, it's exactly this that has led over the last decade to a whole string of apparent true-story memoirs that have all turned out to be made-up; and now it's happened yet again, this time regarding Herman Rosenblat's "Angel at the Fence," one of those Oprah panty-creamers her minions love so much. See, apparently there was this Polish girl during WW2 who slipped apples through the fence to Rosenblat while he was a prisoner at Buchenwald; then ten years later, they happened to get set up on a blind date while both now American immigrants, and formed a romantic relationship that lasted half a century. Ah, but now numerous Holocaust experts have testified that Buchenwald wasn't set up this way, that a prisoner could never get that close to the outermost fence to begin with; it essentially makes Rosenblat's entire story a complete lie. Sheesh.

The curious case of Scott Hoffman, professional film-review hack
Ever wonder who exactly is always providing good critic quotes for atrocious movies? Well, AintItCoolNews.com profiles one of these people today -- Scott Hoffman of moviepicturefilm.com, the guy who provided all those "It will blow you away!" quotes you see in the commercials for the universally trashed "The Spirit." Of course, let's not forget that it's the mainstream media's fault for this situation even occurring; they were the ones who flooded the market in the '80s and '90s with thousands of anonymous, uneducated, bland film critics, one for every single newspaper and every single television station in this country. These people were hired less for critiques and more to write simple plot recaps, so to fill more column inches and thus sell more ads; and this led to the public no longer paying attention to ANY of them, which is exactly what lets film studios get away with such morally questionable practices like you see here.

Uh-oh: Fox wins first round of WATCHMEN "nuisance" lawsuit
Bad news for all of you looking forward to the heavily hyped "WATCHMEN" movie, which had been originally scheduled to come out in three months; a judge has declared that Fox has a legitimate claim over the movie's distribution rights, and that their lawsuit this winter can proceed, one that most had thought was merely a nuisance suit designed to shake money from Warner (new owners of the film rights). The fate of the movie itself still hasn't been determined; but you can almost guarantee now that at least its release will be delayed, to perhaps summer 2009 or even next Christmas. Sigh! (Via AintItCoolNews.com.)

Friedman: "Infrastructure in US and Third World is switching places in quality"
NYT staffer Thomas Friedman recently took a trip to Hong Kong, and was astounded by the differences he saw flying home: that there, a sleek internet-ready bullet train took him safely and quickly to their beautiful, high-tech airport, full of free amenities for worn-out foreigners; while what greeted him at home was the crappy outdated JFK Airport, $3 luggage-cart fees, and a dirty, broken-down Amtrak that dropped his cellphone signal three times in 15 minutes, even as he was reading in the paper on the way home about tens of billions of taxpayer dollars being handed over to a corrupt, utterly inept American auto industry. Something needs to change, he opines here, profoundly and soon, or before too long it'll actually be the US with a third-world transportation infrastructure, not the third-world nations themselves.

Cops busted for literally stealing toys from poor children
Wow -- it's like a freaking Charles Dickens story come to life. "Please, sir, may I have some more gruel?" "SOME MORE?!?!?!?!"