I guess I need a refresher on exactly what this freedom of speech thing is all about. I was under the impression that it meant pretty much what the words said, but apparently some folks don't get it. Some supporters of Islam have had the temerity to assume that the first amendment applied to them, silly Muslims. The folks at LGF and the usually useful Zombie have taken umbrage and seem to think these practitioners should not be allowed to do PR. Actually they seem to be complaining more about the hypocrisy than the right to air it as pointed out in the comments.

San Franciscans have recently been finding themselves in the
uncomfortable position of riding around on public buses plastered with
the words “ISLAM - Submission to God.” I say
“uncomfortable” because San Francisco is famously amongst the most
secular and non-religious cities in the nation. But there has been nary
a peep of comment or protest about these ubiquitous in-your-face ads,
which are shown here in photos taken on March 2 in San Francisco.
Such was not the case a few weeks ago in Ft. Lauderdale, however,
which is one of the cities where the ads first appeared on buses. As
reported in the Miami Herald,
Fort Lauderdale mayor Jim Naugle joined a protest against the same ad
campaign. While the protest did not succeed in getting the ads removed,
it highlighted the fact the the ads were co-sponsored by the Islamic
Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Council on American-Islamic
Relations (CAIR) — a fact which can be easily confirmed with a little
research

I hate to bust your bubble peoples, but the whole point of the first amendment is that it protects all speech, especially the kind that pisses people off. I exercise my right to cause offense as often as possible. It is necessary to remind the very douche nozzles who are offended by this that they have no right to be free of offense. The same right I use to post the Mohammed bomb head cartoons applies to the ads trying to whitewash a religion that has brought the world honor killings, female circumcision and putting it's women in potato sacks. To be fair this is not the majority of Muslims, but those responsible for these outrages claim it's mantle and do them in it's name.

If their ads piss you off then buy your own pointing out what horrible things get done in the name of the Religion of Peace. But spare me the outrage over their exercise of our most important freedom. Buy an ad memorializing the poor woman whose husband cut her head off so she couldn't enter his fucked up version of Paradise, or the two girls in Texas whose goat-raping, asshole of a father killed them for consorting with infidels. But do not whine because the pimps tasked with rehabbing the image of a religion that inspires this kind of uncivilized BS use the same methods available to Christians, Moonies, Scientologists or any other group foolish enough to believe they alone know the face of GOD. Free speech mother fuckers, free speech!

Posted by: Uncle Jimbo at 07:21 AM | Comments (116)
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The "black-robed tyrants" will be taking up the love that dare not speak its name again this week. Actually, there is news in California and in Massachusetts, but I figured it'd be easier to wrap it all up in one big old gay post.

First, the California Supreme Court is hearing the Prop 8 case today and has devoted a nearly unprecedented three hours to oral argument. No one is pretending that this case isn't a big deal. The argument will be from 9am to 12noon PST and can be streamed here (if their servers don't crash). The Court's Prop 8 page, which has all the filings and other information on the case is here. more...

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:46 AM | Comments (88)
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Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 05:11 AM | Comments (61)
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If you are a sophisticated connoisseur of the motion pictures arts, you will have no idea where the above, slightly altered quote comes from.

If, however, you are a lowbrow Mongoloid conservative* like myself, you will be instantly aware that in "Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan" that sage advice is given to Admiral James Kirk by Doctor Leonard McCoy.

Why do I bring up a passage from a 27 year old movie?

Because it's the first thing I thought of when I read this account of the classless way in which our current First Lady/Bird of Prey Weapons Officer treated her English counterpart.

Like all good guests, Sarah Brown arrived bearing gifts for the children, Malia and Sasha. And they were really nice presents. A bit of thought had clearly gone into choosing them: Top Shop dresses (with matching necklaces) and a selection of books by British authors. Lovely.

Mrs Brown may have two boys but she certainly knows the way to a little girlÂ’s heart. These were gifts chosen in the true spirit of present-giving: to please the recipient, not the giver.

In return Mrs Obama gave the Brown children, Fraser and John, two toy models of Marine One, the Presidential helicopter. Fair enough on the helicopter part, always a popular choice with small boys; but Marine One? ItÂ’s not as though anyone needs reminding that Barack Obama is President or that he has his own helicopter. Short of giving the boys Action Man models of her own husband smiting the evil forces of neoconservatism, Mrs ObamaÂ’s gesture could not have been more solipsistic or more inherently dismissive of Mrs Brown.

Yes, nothing builds on diplomatic friendships like giving out narcissistic, self-aggrandizing gifts. What's the matter, ME-chelle, all out of autographed photos of the ME-ssiah?

Or maybe you are just following Blago's advice. After all, a presidential gift is a f'n valuable thing! You just don't give something like that away for nothing, do ya?

In any event, I suppose the Brown's children got off lucky. I have it on good authority that ME-chelle's original idea was to present them with the smoking entrails of several slain Ferengei who had dared question the wisdom of raising taxes during a recession.

*Used in the Dreherian sense.

UPDATE: The White House Gift Shop sells a "Marine One Playset" for $15.

A Marine One Playset? $15

Two Marine One playsets? $30

Humiliating your closest ally? Priceless.

Thanks to Druid and Buck Naked for the Gift Shop tips.

Posted by: Jack M. at 08:28 PM | Comments (225)
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Damn! I was going to post a series of animal-related stories tonight, but spotted this story on DrudgeÂ’s site. Normally we donÂ’t put things up that Drudge already has, but the HQ has been following the slow circling of the Seattle P-I around the drain for months now. LetÂ’s ride this thing all the way to the end, ummmkay? (Guess I'll play Marlin Perkins tomorrow night)

The latest news is that “The Deciders” have set up an employee web site where they’re now asking for public donations and suggestions to keep the rag alive, at least in an online version. The Drudge snippet leads to this KIRO NewsRadio Story by Heather Bosch.

Please to be savoring: (format shortened from original)

”A movement is stirring to keep the Seattle Post Intelligencer going. According to a P-I employee website, journalists plan to keep an online version of their paper going for at least a couple of months if the paper stops publishing, which could happen mid-March. The goal is to get subscribers and philanthropists to fund the online version.”

"In the short run, the hope really lies with grant makers, foundations, and individuals who have a large sum of money at their disposal and want to invest it in their community to support journalism that goes two, three, or four layers deep," said Reporter Daniel Lathrop.”

The article helpfully provides a link to the aforementioned employee website. The statement there is pretty short and not “newsish,” copyrighted sort of content, but really more of a plea for help. So here’s the whole thing:

”Seattle is at risk of losing both of its daily newspapers, and along with them, the professional daily newspaper writers, reporters, investigators, editors, photographers and others who help keep you informed about news in your city, school and neighborhood.
This site is our effort to bring together all the ideas that have been circulating among different groups and organizations, at coffee shops and pubs during the last few weeks and see if we can all get behind one or two good plans that will keep Seattle's long history of competitive and professional journalism thriving. Contribute your ideas, your expertise, and $10, $50 or even $250 as an early pledge-giver did at SeattlePostGlobe@yahoo.com and let's get the show rolling.”

Posted by: Open Blog at 08:10 PM | Comments (118)
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Oh, this is good. This doesn't matter to me all that much, but it sure matters to Keith Olbermann.

Status-craving, credential-buffing, resume-padding Keith Olbermann just got kicked in his vanities.

I wouldn't mention it, except that Olbermann savages anyone who didn't go to an impressive college. As it happens, he didn't go to an impressive college, either.

If you've ever watched any three nights of his show, you know that Olbermann went to Cornell. But he always forgets to mention that he went to the school that offers classes in milking and bovine management.

Indeed, Keith is constantly lying about his nonexistent "Ivy League" education, boasting to Playboy magazine, for example: "My Ivy League education taught me how to cut corners, skim books and take an idea and write 15 pages on it, and also how to work all day at the Cornell radio station and never actually go to class."

Except Keith didn't go to the Ivy League Cornell; he went to the Old MacDonald Cornell.

The real Cornell, the School of Arts and Sciences (average SAT: 1,325; acceptance rate: 1 in 6 applicants), is the only Ivy League school at Cornell and the only one that grants a Bachelor of Arts degree.

Keith went to an affiliated state college at Cornell, the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (average SAT: about that of pulling guards at the University of South Carolina; acceptance rate: 1 of every 1.01 applicants).

Olbermann's incessant lying about having an "Ivy League education" when he went to the non-Ivy League ag school at Cornell would be like a graduate of the Yale locksmithing school boasting about being a "Yale man."

There's a lot more, but I've already bent broken fair use.

Thanks to "pitythefool."

Posted by: Ace at 06:39 PM | Comments (262)
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As the Joker said: "And here... we... go!"

Obama takes aim at costly defense contracts

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama said on Wednesday the U.S. government was paying too much for things it did not need and ordered a crackdown on spending "plagued by massive cost overruns and outright fraud."

The Democrat, under fire from Republicans for the $3.5 trillion price tag for his 2010 budget plan, also took aim at predecessor George W. Bush and noted the cost of government contracts had doubled to more than half a trillion dollars over the past eight years.

...

"The days of giving defense contractors a blank check are over," Obama told reporters in a briefing on his reforms.

And for ACORN...?

...

Obama said he was ordering a reform of the way the government did business, a move he said would save taxpayers $40 billion a year and help cut the budget deficit, which he has forecast will hit $1.75 trillion for the 2009 fiscal year.

He's basing his case on "cost overruns."

Seems to me I could live with an administration that eliminated spending based on "cost overruns" across all departments.

Odd that our Warrior-Poet in Chief only focuses on one.

It's also worth noting that Warrior-Poet takes the position that it doesn't matter what we spend on, only that we spend, in order to goose the economy.

Once again, defense spending is a curious exception.

We can spend millions on studying the correlation between estrus and flatulence in bi-curious gophers but talk about building an F-22 and suddenly it's "wasteful."

Thanks to WilliamA.

Posted by: Ace at 03:10 PM | Comments (130)
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Quoth the "Crunchy Con:"

Boy, this is getting awfully tiresome, and I'm sorry to see someone of Prof. Hanson's caliber descend into this kind of rhetoric. What is it supposed to mean to describe conservatives who have a beef with Limbaugh's views or rhetoric as "highbrow"? Are the opinions illegitimate or mistaken because they supposedly come from a vantage point of cultural sophistication? Even if that were true, which I doubt, since when do conservatives look down on sophistication itself? Since Joe the Plumber became the Whittaker Chambers of the Mongoloid* Right?

The Mongoloid Right? Well, talk about "a vantage point of cultural sophistication."

He then shows he's also dishonest when he claims no offense was meant to those with Downs syndrome -- he was merely using the word "Mongoloid" in the "Ignatian sense."

That refers to Ignatius J. Reilly, the obese geometry-and-theology enthusiast from A Confederacy of Dunces.

You know the "Ignatian sense" Ignatius uses the word "Mongoloid" in? Same way most people use it -- as a rough synonym for "retard."

Nice try, Rod. Or should I say -- Mr. Sophisticate.

I do enjoy the obvious delight Dreher takes in being called "highbrow" even as he feigns insult over the term. "Highbrow! (bats eyelids) Little old moi?"

Insult, incidentally, Hanson didn't intend, as the professor is obviously quite a bit more highbrow than the blogger Dreher. It is simply a descriptive term, intended to neither slander nor flatter. Dreher obviously considers himself among the cultural vanguard; Hanson is merely attempting to explain to Mr. Sophisticate what it is that his analysis misses; but Mr. Sophisticate needs no instruction on this whatsoever for, while lowbrows obviously need the guidance of highbrows, ultra-accomplished blogger elites like Dreher can learn nothing at all from the lowbrows. Their input unnecessary, as they're fucking retards anyway.

Fucking retards, I mean, in the Ignatian sense, meaning "brain damaged mental defectives."

If there's any insult here, it's to actual highbrows, chagrined to see their cachet diminished by the naming of Dreher as one of their cohort.

This is why he can't resist commenting about the dreaded insult "highbrow" -- he's actually not highbrow but considers himself to be and is really hot to persuade others. Pretty much his claim to being "highbrow" is that he masturbates every morning to Terry Gross.

Shut the fuck up already, Rod. You're a bad writer without anything interesting to say.

I stopped reading the Corner because of you, incidentally. You're tedious. You and you alone, pretty much, find the numbing repetition of your singleminded simplicity compelling.

Monty, Coming at Ya From a Vantage of Cultural Sophistication:

Dear Mr. Dreher:

Sophistication I have no problem with. Affectation I do, and you display much more of the latter than the former.

A dilettante of the intellect thinks that farting at a chou-chou Manhattan dinner party is sophisticated because it is so "unexpected". A true sophisticate like myself understands that you must physically wrestle the host down onto the floor and fart directly upon his head -- thus bringing the Kantian duality of upper-class and lower-class into the sharpest possible focus. You, Mister Dreher, are an amateur.

Now approach so that I may expel flatus upon your Sputnik-like noggin.

Don't be upset at the term "amateur," Dreher. He means it in the Ignatian sense of arriviste.

Posted by: Ace at 02:06 PM | Comments (241)
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In other shocking news, glory is fleeting, beauty fades, and Michael Jordan sure seemed to travel an awful lot without being called for it.

Thanks to EdwardR.

Heh: Blazer asks--

Also how long before the tramp get's her own VH1 reality show? Reille Chance At Love anyone?

Posted by: Ace at 12:36 PM | Comments (95)
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Interesting story from Wired.

One thing kept institutional investors from putting a lot of money into mortgages -- the impossibility of accurately assigning a risk to defaults. A genius mathematician from China came up with a formula to assess that risk, and suddenly money began pouring into mortgages.

Problem? The formula was catastrophically flawed.

The effect on the securitization market was electric. Armed with Li's formula, Wall Street's quants saw a new world of possibilities. And the first thing they did was start creating a huge number of brand-new triple-A securities. Using Li's copula approach meant that ratings agencies like Moody's—or anybody wanting to model the risk of a tranche—no longer needed to puzzle over the underlying securities. All they needed was that correlation number, and out would come a rating telling them how safe or risky the tranche was.

As a result, just about anything could be bundled and turned into a triple-A bond—corporate bonds, bank loans, mortgage-backed securities, whatever you liked. The consequent pools were often known as collateralized debt obligations, or CDOs. You could tranche that pool and create a triple-A security even if none of the components were themselves triple-A. You could even take lower-rated tranches of other CDOs, put them in a pool, and tranche them—an instrument known as a CDO-squared, which at that point was so far removed from any actual underlying bond or loan or mortgage that no one really had a clue what it included. But it didn't matter. All you needed was Li's copula function.

The CDS and CDO markets grew together, feeding on each other. At the end of 2001, there was $920 billion in credit default swaps outstanding. By the end of 2007, that number had skyrocketed to more than $62 trillion. The CDO market, which stood at $275 billion in 2000, grew to $4.7 trillion by 2006.

At the heart of it all was Li's formula. When you talk to market participants, they use words like beautiful, simple, and, most commonly, tractable. It could be applied anywhere, for anything, and was quickly adopted not only by banks packaging new bonds but also by traders and hedge funds dreaming up complex trades between those bonds.

"The corporate CDO world relied almost exclusively on this copula-based correlation model," says Darrell Duffie, a Stanford University finance professor who served on Moody's Academic Advisory Research Committee. The Gaussian copula soon became such a universally accepted part of the world's financial vocabulary that brokers started quoting prices for bond tranches based on their correlations. "Correlation trading has spread through the psyche of the financial markets like a highly infectious thought virus," wrote derivatives guru Janet Tavakoli in 2006.

...

In finance, you can never reduce risk outright; you can only try to set up a market in which people who don't want risk sell it to those who do. But in the CDO market, people used the Gaussian copula model to convince themselves they didn't have any risk at all, when in fact they just didn't have any risk 99 percent of the time. The other 1 percent of the time they blew up. Those explosions may have been rare, but they could destroy all previous gains, and then some.

It's not fair to say that the formula "caused" the crisis. It's more proper to say that greed, willful blindness, and misplaced optimism caused it. But the formula seems to have been used as the mathematical proof that allowed such urges free rein.

Thanks to cismar.

Posted by: Ace at 12:33 PM | Comments (64)
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