“Roland Martin’s tweets were regrettable and offensive. Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization, and is not tolerated. We have been giving careful consideration to this matter, and Roland will not be appearing on our air for the time being.”

Martin has defended what he said in his Tweets as not being homophobic at all. His comments came immediately after the H&M underwear commercial featuring David Beckham.

Since Martin has not deleted any of the Tweets in question, we can walk through the whole thing in chronological order and see how it played out. First, here is the Beckham ad that ran during the Super Bowl.

Immediately after that, Martin Tweeted:

Ain’t no real bruhs going to H&M to buy some damn David Beckham underwear! #superbowl

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 6, 2012

Followed immediately by:

If a dude at your Super Bowl party is hyped about David Beckham’s H&M underwear ad, smack the ish out of him! #superbowl

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 6, 2012

Here is where things started to go bad for Martin. He was challenged by multiple people on Twitter as to what he meant by the Tweets. Were they homophobic?

@ShelbyKnox @rolandsmartin Hey Roland, why? B/c that might mean they’re gay? @CNNLive fire this homophobe.

— Brian (@briansmith31681) February 6, 2012

Martin responded…

@briansmith31681 @ShelbyKnox @CNNLive no, fool! Look at the underwear! You would be the only fool on my TL to come to that conclusion

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 6, 2012

From here out, Martin tried to explain that his issue was not with a mostly-naked man, or gay men. It was with Beckham being shown in a commercial during the Super Bowl. He went on to remind people that he makes wisecracks about soccer a lot. His assertion was that the Super Bowl (American “football”) was no place to run an ad about soccer (European “football”). His crack was about Beckham the soccer player, not Beckham as a half-naked man.

@onmysoapboxx are you that dumb? I rag on soccer all of the time. David Beckham. Soccer player. Pay the hell attention!

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 6, 2012

@marcslove So when Beckham is in a #superbowl commercial, I crack on him. I always say Americans are into football, not soccer.

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 6, 2012

Martin even made another comment about Piers Morgan that would seem to back his “it was about soccer” defense.

I bet soccer fan @piersmorgan will be in line at H&M in the morning to get his hands on David Bechman’s underwear line! LOL #superbowl

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 6, 2012

And, Piers Morgan responded to him in kind, being jovial and saying nothing about gays.

@rolandsmartin I don’t need all the padding. If you get my drift.

— Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan) February 6, 2012

Someone else responded to that exchange…

@rolandsmartin @piersmorgan : Oooh. Not nice. .

— Karen Hunter (@karenhunter) February 6, 2012

And, once again, Martin pointed to soccer as the crux of his joke…

@karenhunter @piersmorgan I’m always jacking with Piers about his love of soccer! LOL

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) February 6, 2012

Flash forward to today. CNN suspends Martin as commentator based on his Tweets. Seems to me like a spineless thing to do. Stand up for the people who work for you if you can tell they are not in the wrong.

This man’s misunderstanding has put Roland Martin’s career in question. This is how an ignorant accusation can get out of hand fast, especially when an organization like CNN refuses to do the right thing. This has nothing whatsoever to do with political ideology. It’s just a matter of decency. Roland Martin explained himself. And, there is at least a whole mountain of reasonable doubt as to whether his statement was interpreted correctly. CNN chose to bow to the invective of ignorant people.

Today’s videos feature BYU sharing its Black History Month knowledge, a Skyrim battle that rivals Braveheart & Lord of the Rings, Go-Go Juice, and a Courtney Stodden mermaid.

My favorite thing about this video is that it has, quite possibly, produced the greatest presidential photo ever taken (see above).

God bless the machinima community, without them we wouldn’t be able to enjoy the absolute pieces of art they construct for free.

CNN attempting to win over the 13 year old teenager market – Santorum Wins South Dakota…WTFBBQ. Keep it coming Blitzer, your Jeopardy performance starts to make sense.

Baby sounds make the internet go round, and round…

Some amazing effects in this video, and if you’re into a trippy experience then I highly recommend it.

St. Vincent “Cheerleader” from Hiro Murai on Vimeo.

In all my years treating the internet like a playground and looking at all the weird stuff I could, I didn’t think I could be shocked…I’m not always right. I have nothing to say…

Go-Go Juice, a mixture of Mountain Dew and Red Bull; what every growing girl needs to compete on the beauty pageant circuit.

A wonderful, and imaginative animated movie about a cat trying to survive in a world filled with water.

Aqua from Gints Zilbalodis on Vimeo.

This video is causing some controversy, for good reason. It’s very eye-opening, and it makes you wonder how these people got to college without knowing these things. The host of the special certainly went with the controversial route as well.

Isn’t she (Courtney Stodden) only 16 years old? Oh well, time to go check my credit score…

He’s 71 years old.

He’s #23 on Forbes list of powerful people.

He’s #1 on their Billionaires list.

He has a fortune of $74 Billion.

His wealth is roughly 5% of Mexico’s annual economic output,

And, if the rumor mill is correct, he’s about to hook up with Larry King for an online venture.

Larry King, whose CNN show “Larry King Live” ran for 25 years from 1985 to 2010. He signed off on December 16, 2010 and handed the reins to Piers Morgan.

Given the high-profile personalities attached to this project, everyone is staying mum about it. King’s attorney did say: “I can confirm that there have been discussions in which I participated.”

Larry King spent his entire career in broadcasting, so an online venture would be a departure for him. But, with the kind of name recognition he has, it’s easy to see why a moneybags like Carlos Saks would court him.

Zite is an iPad news reader that uses personalization to determine what to show you.

KC Estenson, GM of CNN Digital said, “Zite represents the next generation of content discovery and personalized publishing and CNN wants to help lead in that space. We think we can advance the industry in a meaningful way that helps content creators grow their businesses while growing the distribution of a product that people already love. Zite’s technology can also be used to help CNN’s Websites and apps serve more personalized content, making our current digital services even better.”

Zite CEO Mark Johnson added, “Zite is thrilled about combining forces with CNN to create a world-class news discovery platform. In CNN, we have found a partner who shares our vision and passion. Being part of the CNN family gives us the capital to grow Zite’s business and continue to innovate in the space.”

Zite is currently available for free on the iPad from the App Store or iTunes.

Zite is currently only available on the iPad, but the company says it hopes to expand to other platforms – at least that’s what the FAQ says. A spokesperson tells WebProNews there are no Android plans at the moment.

Tuesday night, on a flight from Paris to Dublin, Depardieu suffered a bout of impatience and reportedly urinated in the aisle of his plane.

According to witnesses, the actor made it known that he needed to pee, yelling “I need to piss, I need to piss.” Those entreats fell on deaf ears, as the crew asked him to wait 15 minutes for the sealbelt light to turn off.

Depardieu apparently couldn’t wait, so he proceeded to pull out an empty bottle and attempt to pee in it. His aim was off, however, and he ended up making a mess in the aisle of the plane.

As you might expect, alcohol was involved.

That’s where Anderson Cooper comes in. The usually serious CNN anchor discussed the incident on last night’s “Ridiculist” segment on his nightly show. The segment is laced with puns, and Cooper couldn’t handle it. Watch as he tries to hold himself together but is overcome by the end with uncontrollable giggling.

“They saw an actual thespian, actually thesPEEin.” Who can keep their composure with lines like that?

As mentioned in the clip, the airline company involved in the incident, CityJet, tweeted about it last night –

It’s always viral gold when News anchors, especially ones like Anderson Cooper, lose it on air. Could you have kept your composure reporting on such a ridiculous incident?

The former Tea Party candidate for the U.S. Senate from the state of Delaware made an appearance on “Piers Morgan Tonight” last night. And by make an appearance, I mean a brief appearance, as O’Donnell cut the interview short and walked out on the host.

Her 2010 campaign for the Senate will probably be remembered for her “I’m not a witch” ad that flooded the internet and television and spawned numerous parodies.

On his HBO show Real Time, comedian Bill Maher aired a clip from his previous show, ABC’s Politically Incorrect, that featured O’Donnell saying, “I dabbled into witchcraft – I never joined a coven. I hung around with people who were doing these things, we went tot a movie and then had a little midnight picnic on a satanic altar. And I didn’t know it.” That generated a lot of buzz in the media and prompted this now infamous ad –

Last night, O’Donnell appeared on Piers Morgan’s show to promote her new book, “Trouble Maker.” She didn’t like the persistence that Piers showed on his questions about gay marriage and “don’t ask don’t tell.” O’Donnell said she wanted to discuss the book, and Piers claimed that he was discussing stuff that was, in fact, in the book. After calling the host “rude,” she abruptly ended the interview. Check out the video below –

O’Donnell asks, “Don’t you think, as a host, um, if I say this is what I want talk about – that’s what we should address?” To which Piers Morgan replies, “Uh, not really, no.”

Piers tweeted about the incident pretty much all night. Check out some of the best tweets –

Piers retweeted this –

Christine O’Donnell also had some interesting things to say on Twitter –

O’Donnell said this about walking out on Piers this morning (courtesy of My Fox DC) -

Well first of all I want to set the record straight, it wasn’t the question on gay marriage. He had a decidedly inappropriate line of questions leading up to that, that many people – bloggers, are saying was just border-line creepy.

And, I’m trying to move away from it, you know, I’m not a 20-year-old on MTV right now, so let’s get back to the political issues that I lay out in the book – and he wouldn’t let up.

I was not there to talk about sex – and he would not stop trying to talk about sex.

What do you think? Should he have continued to press her on the issue? Let us know in the comments?

This marks the first implementation of LinkedIn’s Company Insider widget, which would be quite significant on its own.  It doesn’t hurt that big names like CNNMoney (which acts as the online home of Fortune) and Fortune are involved, either.

So back to the widget’s function.  In this instance, it’s meant to "[s]how readers the people in their LinkedIn network who are employed by each of FORTUNE’s 100 Best Companies," according to a post on the LinkedIn Blog.  It’ll also "[l]ist new hires and job changes at each of the FORTUNE 100 Best Companies."

Finally, if anyone wants to keep an eye on the situation rather than act immediately, there’s a "custom ‘Follow’ button that gives readers more news and information about the company they choose to follow."

This is sure to prove popular with a lot of folks.  No one’s promising that tons of hires will occur as a result, of course – the job market’s still pretty iffy – but some people may benefit from making new contacts.

Meanwhile, LinkedIn and CNNMoney should see a lot more page views.

Last night, CNN’s Jessica Yellin interviewed Tom Barnett, counsel to Expedia and former assistant attorney general for antitrust at the DOJ, and Adam Kovacevich, Google’s senior manager of global communications and public affairs together in what almost seemed like a court case in itself in which the audience was the jury. 

Google’s stance is that it wants to provide better answers for consumers in travel search (airfares, flight times, etc.) and point them to third-party sites where they can actually purchase tickets – sites like those behind FairSearch. 

The main concern of FairSearch, which the coalition hopes the DoJ will agree with, is that Google could possibly cut off access to ITA, which provides technology to other travel sites, and that given Google’s dominance in search in general, the other sites that depend on the technology will not be able to compete. 

"It’s important to say, we haven’t designed this product yet, and we won’t be able to start designing it until we actually close this acquisition, so we don’t know for sure what these tools will look like," said Kovacevich. "But that said, we’re big believers that this is actually going to create more competition and more competition usually brings down prices for consumers. I think it’s also important to emphasize that we’re not going to be in the business of setting airfares. That’s up to the airlines, and we are going to be sending people directly to sites like Expedia and AmericanAirlines.com, where they can purchase these tickets."

He also said that Google will not deny service to competitors. "Google’s not going to do that," he said. "We’ve committed not to doing that, but I think also, more importantly, Tom and others have argued that ITA is somehow an essential input to some of these companies, and actually Expedia doesn’t even use ITA. Neither does Travelocity or Priceline. So the top three travel sites don’t even use ITA."

To this, Barnett responded, "With all due respect, Adam has misrepresented things. Google has not said that it would renew current licenses, that it would license continuing innovations, or that it would do so on reasonable terms. If Adam would like to say here and now publicly that Google will commit to do that to current licensees, that would address one of the concerns presented by the transaction."

Kovacevich maintains that Google plans to enter new agreements both with existing contactees and new ones, and that Google’s acquisition of ITA Software would help competition. 

As Google has said in the past, competition is always a click away, and frankly they’re right. Google may dominate search, but people are still choosing which search engine they want to use. Are they not?

There is more to the conversation between Kovacevich and Barnett. You can watch the interview here.

Earlier this month, FairSearch added some new members to its coalition, including Microsoft (which obviously runs Bing and Bing Travel). Kovacevich told WebProNews, "I’m not sure there are any surprises here. Microsoft is our largest competitor and lobbies regulators against every acquisition we make…"

 The CNN App for iPad combines images with  reporting from CNN, including text stories, blog posts, photo galleries, and live or on-demand video. Users have the ability to toggle between U.S. and international news.

The app has a user comment feature that runs alongside content on the screen. Users can share text stories, images and videos from the app via email, Facebook and Twitter.

The CNN App for iPad has three viewing options:

*Broadsheet, the default view, displays up to 350 news stories in a grid-format featuring images and headlines.

*List View features a running list of headlines by topic and category.

*Slide Show allows users to scroll through a visual presentation of the day’s top headlines.

CNN says the app will be updated in real-time as stories break, and users will be alerted of breaking news via Push Notification.

Michael Calderone, in an article at Yahoo News, talks about the Associated Press monitoring CNN, and claiming that the netowrk is routinely using its reporting, even since CNN announced it was dropping the AP’s service. 

According to Jennifer Van Grove at Mahable, McDonalds experienced a 33% increase in "foot traffic" to stores with a Foursquare campaign. The company’s head of social media says the 33% increase was in check-ins, and they consider check-ins the same as  a person entering the restaurant. 

Danny Sullivan talked to Eric Schmidt this week about Google’s ranking factors. Watch the amusing response from Schmidt in this video Sullivan posted:

Google is doing a lot with predictions these days. At Google I/O earlier this year, Google announced the Prediction API. More recently, it launched Google Instant, with the goal of giving you your results before you even finish typing the query. Today, Google is talking about some research its doing in trying to predict when searchers are frustrated with their results. The company also launched some new features to the Prediction API.

Philip Elmer-DeWitt at Fortune reports that notebook sales growth has gone negative, suggesting that the iPad might have something to do with that.