If you ever get an e-mail from a journalist, there’s one portion of it you should pay attention to more than any other. No, it’s not the part where they’re asking you about the counterfeit jeans operation you’re running out of your car hole; it’s the sign-off.

If it’s “Cheers,” you’re cool. You did OK. If it’s “Regards,” you pissed somebody off, and you better figure out how to fix things, quick.

We apply those same tenets here, every week.

CHEERS to Glenn Greenwald at Salon for a particularly devastating take-down of an especially condescending New York Times piece on those wacky Muslims and the absolutely cuh-razy conspiracy theories they believe…by presenting a long list of equally baseless beliefs that the American news media has pushed on the public. Such as Iraq’s nuclear weapons program. Or the “rescue” of Jessica Lynch. Or Pat Tillman not dying by friendly fire. Or, well, you get the idea. (DW)

REGARDS to the Philadelphia Daily News for being unable to work just one more instance of the phrase “‘East Side’ tattooed on his upper lip” into this reworking of an AP wire story. Just over thirty percent of the sentences in the story contain the phrase “‘East Side’ tattooed on his upper lip” and we believe that number should have been at least fifty or sixty percent. It’s like they’re not even trying to put the phrase “‘East Side’ tattooed on his upper lip” into articles any longer. For shame, Daily News, for shame.

Oh, and also- “‘East Side’ tattooed on his upper lip.” (RJW)