Guy Ritchie’s new flick, Sherlock Holmes feels like a Choose Your Own Adventure that doesn’t work out quite right, and, worst of all, it bores, says Luke Buckmaster.
December, 2009
Yelp! Who says no to Google and half a billion dollars?
Yelp, a US web site that reviews local restaurants and shops, has walked away from late negotiations for a Google deal worth half a billion dollars. Has someone else — Apple? Microsoft? — offered them a better strategic deal?
The biggest Aussie marketing disasters of 2009
Media and marketing blog mUmBRELLA has named Westpac’s banana smoothie campaign as the biggest marketing disaster of the year, beating out Kraft’s iSnack 2.0 and Witchery’s disastrous man-in-a-jacket stunt.
inside info 
Twitter finally turns a profit
Twitter’s real-time search deals with Microsoft and Google — worth about $25 million combined — will see the company finally turn a (small) profit this year, according to company insiders.
Not yet Palin into insignificance
Sarah Palin’s Going Rogue slick publicity tour is getting her back in the media and the voters’ faces again, even if her political career is uncertain. Can she steal the conservative spotlight back from Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck?
Matt Preston ditches Fairfax for News Ltd
Celebrity food critic and break-out MasterChef star, Matt Preston, has given The SMAge the flick to write exclusively for News Corp, according to The Oz.
Is no one allowed to question the government?
Anyone who dared question the government’s ETS plan, like Senator Barnaby Joyce, was declared a climate change dinosaur and destroyer of our future. When will the magic ride of Rudd rhetoric end? asks Malcolm Colless.
revealed 
America’s secret war in Pakistan
Elite helicopter-borne US forces have been conducting clandestine raids into Pakistan at night as part of an ongoing secret war near the country’s Afghanistan border, according to a former Nato officer.
Sheehan: Rudd just an environmental blowhard of hot air
We can’t blame Kevin Rudd entirely for climate change and global warming. But we can blame him for making it even worse, writes Paul Sheehan. Rudd’s green credentials are disappearing faster than the Murray Darling Basin.
Send Conroy a lump of coal for Christmas
A new website called The Gift Of Censorship is promising to deliver a bag of coal in a large red sack to Stephen Conroy and for every 1000 complaint letters sent to him through the site.
Garnaut: Thumbs up for the Obama Accord
Copenhagen was a complete fiasco. However, the ‘Obama Accord’ that came out of it is a step in the right direction and probably the best we could have hoped for, writes Ross Garnaut.
Akerman: What part of the word “failure” doesn’t Rudd understand?
Copenhagen was an “abject disaster, a dud, a dog, a bust” and a “flopperoo of grand proportions”, says Piers Akerman — so why is he still determined to push forward with an ETS?
Wilson: It used to be about the music — Rudd sells out
By supporting the Copenhagen Accord, Kevin Rudd has sold out Australia’s ability to negotiate on future climate deals for very little in return, says Tim Wilson.
Rudd — go green or go home
With the Coalition now unlikely to cut a deal with the Government on an ETS, Kevin Rudd’s best hope may be to commit to a much more serious emissions target of 25% to gain the support of the Greens.
Oh, it wasn’t that bad, WSJgraph pr0n 
10 years of stock market suffering
The WSJ illustrates its bold assertion that the 2000s were the stock market’s “worst decade ever” with a range of interactive graphs to hammer home the point.
Wall Street: Worst. Decade. Ever.
The Wall Street Journal has boldly declared the 2000s the stock market’s “worst decade ever” in its 200 years of recorded history — yep, even worse than the ’30s. Ouch.
How the gift card stole Christmas
Once upon a time, people gave each other actual things for Christmas, until retail stores came up with the grand idea of dressing cash up as thoughtfulness and turned it into a multi-billion dollar industry. A looks at the evolution of the gift that says “I care… just not that much.”
The silliest reasons for not buying books
From “it’s too blue!” to not politically correct enough classic stories, a children’s bookseller spills on what makes some customers open a book and purchase it and what makes them put it back on the shelf.
Nerd alert: uber-geeky Christmas crafts
Lifehacker has eight dorky (but cool!) DIY projects for the holidays, including an LED Christmas card and a laser light show for your Christmas tree.
Somalia: the real victim of Bush’s War on Terror
Iraq and Afghanistan may have grabbed the headlines, but Somalia has been the real victim of the War on Terror, with the US inadvertently delivering the country into the arms of Islamic extremists with ties to al-Qaeda., writes Martin Fletcher.
revealed The Israeli organ harvesters: stealing body parts from Palestinians
In a move likely to throw fuel on an already volatile fire, Israel has admitted it harvested organs from dead Palestinians without permission. But, despite claims to the contrary, there is no evidence of Palestinians being killed for their organs.
The Top 20 songs of 2009
From Australian Idol whiz kid Lisa Mitchell, to a “choral/chant/funeral/wedding piece” by Serbian composer Goran Bregović, Crikey’s music blogger Tim Dunlop names his top 20 songs of the year.
Copenhagen: the pundits weigh in
Robert Shrum, John Kerry and Christine Todd Whitman and others have their say on whether Copenhagen was a success. Their responses are surprisingly upbeat.
The Christmas card the Obamas should have sent
Slate’s Christopher Beam was pretty unimpressed with this year official Obama family holiday card, so he went to the effort of penning them a much better, far more entertaining, version.
