MORE STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW (OR NOT)

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My man Joseph Patel, aka Jazzbo, aka Joey Crack, aka Joseph and Mary Jesus Chain, aka oh, never mind...has finally got his Crunkster blog going. Consider yourselves warned.

People can argue over who the best music writer is out there, but hands-down, XXL's Elliot Wilson is the most entertaining scribe in the business. Up until he helped improve the mag's editorial content, he was pretty much the best (and sometimes only) reason to read the magazine. Read his thoughts on this ridiculous Eminem/Source debacle.

This is not a joke: apparently, Al Franken decked a heckler outside of a Dean rally. Dude is hardcore - I can't wait for his talk radio show to kick off. (spotted at the blueprint)

yeah, this dude, sucker punching fools.

There is a fascinating set of conversations brewing about Peter Landesman's NY Times Magazine story on sex slaves in America. On one side, there has been a movement (whether big or small, I'm not sure) to discredit Landesman's methodology, even casting aspirations that his reporting might be suspect. Jack Shafer in Slate has reported on it and so has blogger Daniel Radosh in a series of entries. Offering a retort against Shafer, Radosh and other doubting Thomas-es has been Sasha Frere-Jones on his blog, as well as Julianne Shepherd whose comments are posted on Sasha's blog. The real heat comes from Jessica Hopper's scorching post.

On lighter blog fare, Hiphopsite.Com's J-Smooth takes on Jessica Hopper of tinyluckygenius fame. It's all love but they've taken this "play beef" to new heights now that J has recorded - are you ready for this? - a battle song dissing Jessica. Shit is so hot, I hear Dame Dash and El-P are in a bidding war to sign J-Smooth to the Roc and Def Jux respectively.

Hey, I'm not exactly a big fan of how the FCC deals with obscenity on radio and television but I detest Clear Channel even more so I'm kind of happy that Clear Channel is getting slapped with a $755,000 fine for airing a sexually explicit and "inappropriate" program on four Florida stations. Of course, $755,000 to Clear Channel is probably what they collect in payola every hour but still...