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Stefan Sirucek
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Stefan Sirucek is a writer and freelance journalist. In February 2010 he broke the Sarah Palin "Palm-Prompter" story. In addition to the Huffington Post, he has written for The Provincetown Banner and contributed to NPR.

You can see more of his work on his blog and contact him at: stefan (DOT) sirucek @ gmail.com

Blog Entries by Stefan Sirucek

Book Review: Your Wildest Dreams, Within Reason

Posted March 24, 2011 | 17:52:07 (EST)

If you could spend an hour inside Mike Sacks' brain you would probably get lost. You might also find yourself giggling uncontrollably or wind up sobbing in a ball on the floor.

You would not be bored.

Sacks has written humor pieces for the New Yorker, McSweeny's and The Believer,...

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The Book of Bad Decisions: Texts From Last Night

Posted December 23, 2010 | 14:39:01 (EST)

"Brevity is the soul of wit." - Hamlet

Since 2009 the website Texts From Last Night has collected a million Facebook fans, over a billion page views and, above all, countless text messages.

Put together by the site's creators Lauren Leto and Ben Bator, the paper version of...

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The Sarah Palin Coloring Book!

Posted December 18, 2010 | 10:53:52 (EST)


Countless articles, books and television shows have pondered the strange case of Sarah Palin, but finally someone's captured her in the right medium. If you're looking for the perfect gift for that Republican uncle this Christmas, look no further than Going Rouge: The Sarah Palin Rogue Coloring and...

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Texas City Councilman Tells Gay Teens "It Gets Better" in Emotional Speech

Posted October 13, 2010 | 17:21:06 (EST)

Yesterday Forth Worth, TX City Councilman Joel Burns spoke out about the rash of recently reported suicides among gay teenagers as the result of bullying.

Burns spoke about his own experiences as a gay teenager and broke down describing a time when the bullying was so bad that...

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ATTI: Auto-Tune the Interview

Posted July 16, 2010 | 13:16:59 (EST)

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"God Bless America" is a phrase so overloaded and overused that it rarely escapes cliché - unless, of course, it's delivered by a bellowing Joe Biden, his voice pitched to melodious perfection and backed up by a chorus of "Hey!"s, as...

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Classic: Conan O'Brien and Robert Reich Lay Down the Law (VIDEO)

Posted May 18, 2010 | 14:55:39 (EST)

Ok, two wars, a flailing economy, rampant financial fraud and an oozing oil slick covering the Gulf. Times are tough and things are hairy, so what better way to solve our myriad problems then by turning to our best and brightest (or toughest and tallest) for help?

Clearly I'm talking...

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Top Conservatives Reshelved (PHOTOS)

Posted March 27, 2010 | 17:26:55 (EST)

At a recent book-signing of Karl Rove's new memoir "Courage and Consequence", intrepid tweeter @OTOOLEFAN did some creative re-shelving:

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Our hero also risked the mark of...

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When the Ink Clears: A Second Peek at Palm-Gate

Posted February 17, 2010 | 19:34:20 (EST)

It's been just over a week since I first broke photographs of Sarah Palin's Tea Party crib notes. The story was swiftly picked up by blogs and gossip sites, then newspapers , then kicked around on the cable shows before receiving it's ultimate judgment at the hands of...

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EXCLUSIVE: Palin's Tea Party Crib Notes

Posted February 7, 2010 | 00:24:23 (EST)

UPDATE: (New updates and media reactions after the photos)

Closer inspection of a photo of Sarah Palin, during a speech in which she mocked President Obama for his use of a teleprompter, reveals several notes written on her left hand. The words "Energy", "Tax" and "Lift American Spirits" are clearly...

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An Interview With Howard Zinn

Posted January 28, 2010 | 10:26:13 (EST)

Howard Zinn - historian, professor, liberal activist and author of A People's History of the United States - passed away yesterday at 87.

I didn't know Mr. Zinn personally, but because I grew up in Wellfleet, a town in which Mr. Zinn spent much of his time, I would see...

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The Democrats and the Mythical Middle

Posted January 21, 2010 | 11:40:43 (EST)

The "mythical middle", a phrase coined, as far as I know, by Arianna Huffington during her recent appearance on Olbermann, goes to the heart of the Democrats' problems.

The first clue should be that a move to the center is what's currently being advocated by...

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Geek Like Me: A Review of Ethan Gilsdorf's Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks

Posted January 7, 2010 | 15:44:34 (EST)

If the hair on your feet makes you think of Bilbo Baggins...

If you can tell a battle-axe from a halberd at 50 yards...

If you know that a Gelatinous Cube has nothing to do with JELLO...

...you might be a geek.

But what does it mean to be...

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Twitter, Where Grammar Comes to Die

Posted December 3, 2009 | 16:44:19 (EST)

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For those unfamiliar with Twitter, the micro-blogging and social networking site includes a feature called "Trending Topics". This a short list of the most talked - or "tweeted" - about topics on the site, more or less in real time.

A topic...

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Remembering Kristallnacht in Berlin: The Story of Hans Riess

Posted November 9, 2009 | 08:35:51 (EST)

November 9th is an important date in German history. It marks the day that the Berlin Wall fell, 20 years ago this month, physically and symbolically uniting a dissevered nation.

The reason it's not a national holiday in Germany, is that November 9th - specifically the night of November 9th...

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YouTube Shifts Policy, Starts Paying One-Hit-Wonders

Posted September 4, 2009 | 12:52:01 (EST)

Well more like 20-million-hit-wonders.

On Sunday NPR reported that popular video-sharing site YouTube has begun paying those with hit videos, even if they only have one:

The online video Web site recently announced that users who create just one viral video are eligible for advertising partnerships with the...
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"Protester Does Shocking Thing": The Tyranny of Anecdotal Evidence

Posted August 25, 2009 | 12:57:47 (EST)

Anecdotal Evidence: (def.) (2) Evidence, which may itself be true and verifiable, used to deduce a conclusion which does not follow from it, usually by generalizing from an insufficient amount of evidence.

There have been guns at health care town halls. Possibly rocket-launchers. There have been people waving signs comparing...

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The Politics of Laughter: Hitler Takes Center Stage in Berlin

Posted May 21, 2009 | 19:18:02 (EST)

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BERLIN

Mel Brooks' musical The Producers premiered in Germany on Sunday at the Admiral Palast theatre in Berlin.

The musical, for those unfamiliar with it, is the story of two scheming Broadway producers, the greedy Max Bialystock and his neurotic accountant Leo Bloom,...

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Honey, The View Shrank My Brain

Posted May 7, 2009 | 07:57:30 (EST)


"What you just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to...

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May Day in Berlin

Posted May 2, 2009 | 10:35:22 (EST)

Protests are traditional in Germany on the first of May, and - particularly in Berlin and Hamburg - the clash between police and protester is an almost cherished institution.

True to form, around 15,000 people gathered in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin yesterday to either protest, celebrate, or celebrate...

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Born In The U.S.A. - Expats Look Back

Posted November 12, 2008 | 14:03:05 (EST)

BERLIN

An excited, anxious mix of Americans and Germans crowded into the Babylon Theatre in Berlin last Tuesday to watch the election results roll in live on the big screen.

It was an eight-hour nocturnal marathon, with people switching between beer and coffee to calm their nerves and stay...

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