Rachel Maddow reports.

“In painting, as in the other arts, there’s not a single process, no matter how insignificant, which can be reasonably made into a formula. You come to nature with your theories, and she knocks them all flat.”
—Pierre-Auguste Renoir

The 2010 AP Stylebook is out, and as this press release explains, there are “42 separate entries on such terms as app, blogs, click-throughs, friend and unfriend, metadata, RSS, search engine optimization, smart phone, trending, widget and wiki.”

Here are the two big ones, though:

“Web site” is now “website” and “email” remains “email.”

I’m glad the hyphen stays, but after more than 15 years of internalizing “Web site,” remembering to write “website” is going to be significantly worse than remembering to write the correct year on my checks in that first week of January.

You may or may not have noticed, but Huffington Post now has a system for users who comment on stories. HuffPost Badges, according to their FAQ, “is our newest way to recognize and empower HuffPost readers and users. So far, we’re focusing on three key areas of user activity on the site: connecting with others, engaging with our content, and moderating our comments. We’re highlighting these three areas and recognizing the top users in them.”

Nah, it’s a cheesy way of turning commenting on news stories into a version of Mafia Wars. “Only 243 more comments and I’m a Level 3 Superuser!” is pretty much the same deal as “Only 1,697 more experience points and I’m a Level 239 Consigliere.”

Badges are in beta. HuffPo should consider it a failure and lose them — they cheapen the site.

Egads.

For your amusement, the full text of the complaint has been posted to Scribd.

The woman should be embarrassed beyond words for bringing this suit.

The lawyer should be disbarred for bringing this suit.

Pathetic.