Good evening, Morons and Moronettes, and we're pleased to continue the tradition of the last couple of years in bringing you AoSHQ's coverage of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

I'm tmi3rd, and Drew M. and I will be doing weekly-ish posts to coincide with the weekend games on NBC. NBC has elected to team up with the NHL Network to cover every game live (utilizing CNBC, the NBC Sports Network, the NHL Network, and the free channel), so you'll be able to watch pretty much everything unfold in real time.

Below the fold, we'll have a brief preview of the three series openers going this evening. more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 02:08 PM | Comments (115)
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Presser: Man, did she smile a lot. I know if I were the prosecutor in what I termed a murder, possibly incarcerating a man for his entire life, I'd be brightly beaming too.

Was she here to announce murder charges, or a new Guilt-Free Tiramisu that won't go straight to your thighs?

I would call her "giddy as a schoolgirl" but that would denigrate the seriousness of purpose of schoolgirls.

...

AP says second degree murder, and he is in custody.

Second degree murder is the most he could have been charged with, as he wouldn't fit first degree.

Here's second degree:

(2) The unlawful killing of a human being, when perpetrated by any act imminently dangerous to another and evincing a depraved mind regardless of human life, although without any premeditated design to effect the death of any particular individual, is murder in the second degree and constitutes a felony of the first degree, punishable by imprisonment for a term of years not exceeding life or as provided in s. 775.082, s. 775.083, or s. 775.084.

So, they're not even going for some kind of lesser charge. They are charging him with the most serious murder charge they can.

...

Is this real new information?

Corey’s office released a statement saying it would hold a news conference “to release new information regarding the Trayvon Martin shooting death investigation” at 6 p.m. Wednesday in Jacksonville, Fla.

I suggest it might be a claim that Zimmerman's flight from the jurisdiction constitutes "consciousness of guilt," rather than, oh, what's the word for it, white knuckled fear for his survival.

One possibility suggested by RD (I think) is that Zimmerman said something contrary to his legal interests when he phoned the prosecutor -- a walk-back from his previous story, for example, when confronted with evidence against it -- which would indeed be new evidence, and relevant.

Another possibility -- as I've said, if you can pin down Zimmerman's actual movements, you might be able to infer if he was walking back to his car, or still tracking Martin, when the confrontation occurred. That doesn't prove Zimmerman initiated the confrontation, but if he was still tracking Martin when he said (I believe he said this, at least through family members) he was walking back to his car, that would undermine his story.

But I'm guessing it's just the "No longer in the jurisdiction, he must be guilty" thing.

Posted by: Ace at 01:25 PM | Comments (727)
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Microtargeting and the collection of reams of information about specific individual voters is now the name of the game, and the game is well in progress.

Matthew Dowd brought data to Karl Rove in 2004, informing him that the "True Independent," really up-for-grabs vote was not 24%, as long imagined, but only 7%. Karl Rove was shocked, and adapted -- rather than chase independents, he would find the Republicans in Democratic areas and try to turn them, specifically, out. (As opposed to the whole region.)

He turned to microtargeting to find these voters. But the science of data collection and guessing someone's partisan leanings has advanced greatly since that first primitive (and yet very successful) effort.

"But we were like kids playing with Play-doh," said Gage, who directs TargetPoint Consulting and was Mitt Romney's 2008 lead microtargeter, in a recent interview. "We thought we were pretty smart -- but today? It's mind-boggling. Someone handed us a magnifying glass and we said, 'Oh, We can see some people.' Then someone said, 'Try a microscope.' And now we're using electronic microscopes."

Inside microtargeting offices in Washington and across the nation, individual voters are today coming through in HDTV clarity -- every single digitally-active American consumer, which is 91 percent of us, according to Pew Internet research. Political strategists buy consumer information from data brokers, mash it up with voter records and online behavior, then run the seemingly-mundane minutiae of modern life -- most-visited websites, which soda's in the fridge -- through complicated algorithms and: pow! They know with "amazing" accuracy not only if, but why, someone supports Barack Obama or Romney, says Willie Desmond of Strategic Telemetry, which works for the Obama reelection campaign.

Entertaining and baffling discoveries abound. For example: Soda seems to count a great deal. Diet Dr. Pepper evidently indicates a Republican who votes, while apathetic Democrats drink 7up, according to National Media Research Planning & Placement. Beer, too, matters. Relatively uninterested Republicans go for Busch Light.

Meanwhile, Obama has an even bigger project called Narwhal doing even more.

This year, however, as part of a project code-named Narwhal, ObamaÂ’s team is working to link once completely separate repositories of information so that every fact gathered about a voter is available to every arm of the campaign. Such information-sharing would allow the person who crafts a provocative email about contraception to send it only to women with whom canvassers have personally discussed reproductive views or whom data-mining targeters have pinpointed as likely to be friendly to ObamaÂ’s views on the issue.

Narwhal found a liberal young woman in a conservative area of Ohio and sent her an email talking up the "War on Women" and such.

It was a message that sat well with the young Ohioan who received it. She was single, liberal, sensitive to medical costs—but she had never told the campaign any of those things, and the one piece of information she had provided (her ZIP code) could easily mark her as the type of traditionalist Midwestern woman who would recoil at efforts to liberalize access to birth control. Indeed, she found it hard to believe that many other residents of her ZIP code would look as favorably upon a rallying cry to defend Planned Parenthood as she did.

That said, the "Fun" thing here is clicking on the first link, and checking out the graphs of what Republicans and Democrats watch, eat, and drink, and seeing how your own preferences align with them.

The graph is kind of more fun than revelatory -- as usual, 90% of this stuff is obvious, as you can guess that younger voters watch MTV (and hence that has a Democratic, low-turnout skew) and older voters watch crime dramas and so on.

But still, it's fun, for the surprises. 30 Rock is a show for high-turnout, very Democratic voters -- okay, that's not a surprise. It skews female, and definitely urbanized white Yuppie.

More surprising is that the most Republican, high-turnout (us) of beers is Michelob Ultra.

Really? Really.

Watching FoxNews makes you fairly Republican and fairly high turnout, but watching Fox Business News makes you an absolute Spartan Warrior for the cause.

The show we really need to advertise on is Undercover Boss. Republicans like it -- but they're low-turnout Republicans.

Posted by: Ace at 12:58 PM | Comments (148)
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Gee, why didn't he stay in Florida?

Right. So this is the time for my media lecture about how I must let go of racial hatred, right?

"Let me tell you, the things that's about to happen, to these honkeys, these crackers, these pigs, these pink people, these ---- people. It has been long overdue. My prize right now this evening ... is gonna be the bounty, the arrest, dead or alive, for George Zimmerman. You feel me?"

I feel you.

She's now saying she didn't say what she said.

She spoke openly, "My words were out of anger. I did not incite, I did not promote, nor did I encourage anyone to go and pick up a gun."

That's "openly"? Nice editorializing, WTSP. That's not "openly," that's "ass-savingly."

That article refers to that threat of a "bounty," for a killing, and blood in the streets for the "pink people" (which is "long overdue") as "controversial."

Controversial. Yes. Like, say, the cancellation of Firefly.

By the way, she looks like this:

...so one can imagine she has a lot of rage at the world. God didn't love her enough to make her pretty.

This is something that crops up in "politics" all the time -- hatred and feelings of inadequacy on a primal, psychological level, but then channeled into "politics" which isn't "politics" at all, but a disguised form of screaming at the world for your own shortcomings.

Meanwhile, our Attorney General has high praise for the man who brought us the Tawana Brawley rape hoax (and still claims it's real) and who further made his reputation by fostering racial violence.

At the opening of NAN’s 14th annual convention in Washington, D.C., the attorney general first thanked MSNBC’s Rev. Sharpton “for your partnership, your friendship, and your tireless efforts to speak out for the voiceless, to stand up for the powerless, and to shine a light on the problems we must solve, and the promises we must fulfill.”

That should come as little surprise, as Sharpton was just feted at the White House. For Easter.

Flashback to Freddy's Fashion Mart, from Wikipedia:

In 1995, a black Pentecostal Church, the United House of Prayer, which owned a retail property on 125th Street, asked Fred Harari, a Jewish tenant who operated Freddie's Fashion Mart, to evict his longtime subtenant, a black-owned record store called The Record Shack. Sharpton led a protest in Harlem against the planned eviction of The Record Shack.[35][36][37] Sharpton told the protesters, "We will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business."[38]

On December 8, 1995, Roland J. Smith Jr., one of the protesters, entered Harari's store with a gun and flammable liquid, shot several customers and set the store on fire. The gunman fatally shot himself, and seven store employees died of smoke inhalation.[39][40] Fire Department officials discovered that the store's sprinkler had been shut down, in violation of the local fire code.[41] Sharpton claimed that the perpetrator was an open critic of himself and his nonviolent tactics. Sharpton later expressed regret for making the racial remark, "white interloper," and denied responsibility for inflaming or provoking the violence.[15][42]

And then there's Crown Heights. "Get the Jew."

. Caribbean-American and African-American residents of the neighborhood rioted for four consecutive days fueled by rumors that the private ambulance had refused to treat Cato.[30][31] During the riot blacks looted stores,[30] beat Jews in the street,[30] and clashed with groups of Jews, hurling rocks and bottles at one another[32] after Yankel Rosenbaum, a visiting student from Australia, was stabbed and killed by a member of a mob shouting "Kill the Jew."[33] Sharpton marched through Crown Heights and in front of "770", shortly after the riot, with about 400 protesters (who chanted "Whose streets? Our streets!" and "No justice, no peace!"), in spite of Mayor David Dinkins's attempts to keep the march from happening.[34]

And this is the man feted and praised by our Administration.

Did Obama and Holder forget?

I didn't.

Sure seems like Obama and Holder know and like a great many radicals.

More: That quote actually understated her message. She is expressly calling for a race war, and laments blacks who are too "afraid" to "kill a cracker."

Strong Caution for the Audio. Horrific, and also filled with cursing, but the cursing is not nearly the worst of it.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:44 AM | Comments (609)
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As I thought. Corey didn't seek the Grand Jury because she wants the credit for making a political prosecution.

The decision by Florida special prosecutor Angela Corey is expected to be announced at a 6 p.m. news conference in Jacksonville, Fla.

...

The special prosecutor's ruling came one day after Zimmerman's legal team quit because they had lost contact with him, and suggested that the pressure of the case had "pushed him over the edge."

His lawyers said that Zimmerman was no longer in Florida and ABC News has learned that prosecutors do not know his exact location.

I don't know what the charge would be.

Given the record as we know it, this is a bad decision. There's certainly not nearly enough evidence -- as we know it, assuming we know the evidence (which may not be true) -- to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he didn't believe his life was in danger.

One bit of the evidence, though, gives me pause in that conclusion. While ABC was wrong that Zimmerman had "no injuries," his injuries did not appear (appear) to be all that great.

Given that the standard for the use of lethal force is a reasonable belief that death or serious bodily harm would occur, maybe one can argue that Zimmerman wasn't injured enough to fear this.

Maybe. But then, if someone's on top of you, beating you, knocking your head into the concrete, and no one is answering your cries for help, you're not willing to bet your life on the proposition that the next concrete-slam won't knock you unconscious.

One more thing:

Earlier this week, Sanford Mayor Jeff Triplett said his city has become a "kindling box" due to the high emotions surrounding the case, and that he would "plan for the worst and hope for the best."

I rather think the best decisions are made in a climate in which rioting is more or less threatened. Don't you?

Seems to me, at this point, like the passions of the mob overwhelmed reason and justice -- in other words, just another day in America.

Update: Well this might have factored into the decision.

I don't know for certain, but it's typical for cops to tell someone who might be a person of interest in a case to not leave the jurisdiction.

I gotta admit: I get this from movies or TV. Maybe it's a myth.

But assuming it's not, maybe they don't like the idea he's not in Florida any longer, and are going to count that as "consciousness of guilt."

Lawyers Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig on Tuesday expressed concern about ZimmermanÂ’s emotional and physical well-being, saying he has taken actions without consulting them. They also said they do not know where Zimmerman is.

“You can stop looking in Florida,” Uhrig told reporters. “Look much further away than that.”

Usually people don't have Hollywood directors tweeting out your address and New Black Panthers putting out wanted posters for you. To leave the jurisdiction in that situation isn't "consciousness of guilt." It's "I don't want to be murdered."

Thanks to tasker.

Posted by: Ace at 10:54 AM | Comments (342)
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Kind of an advertisement for Romney -- in conservative circles, anyway.

Ramesh Ponuru wrote some time ago that Obama would have a choice of portraying Romney as either a flip-flopper with no principles or an extremist conservative ideologue.

Can't really do both. As you push on the "wishy-washy opportunist narrative," it undermines the "rigid ideologue" one.

Ponuru figured, correctly as it turns out, Obama would go with the "extremist" meme.

There is a way to do both, and Obama will try it: He can claim that Romney has no core but is a mercenary opportunist, and his only chance for power is to be a "severely conservative" extremist, and hence has flip-flopped to the extremist position.

I don't know if you can really grab both of those, though.

Obama's running around the country branding Romney as Barry Goldwater on steroids (if only).

The president, campaigning in the critical swing state, delivered three speeches that sounded some common themes. The main one was that Romney and today's Republican Party have reverted back to the unreconstructed movement conservatism of Goldwater, one in which nothing much else matters but protecting the rich and shrinking government to a size not seen since the Eisenhower era.

Obama tossed back in Romney's face the line that the former Massachusetts governor has been taking during the primary campaign in order to fight the charge--made most effectively by Santorum--that he and the president are too similar: that this is a historic election between candidates with two fundamentally different concepts of government. "There are contrasting visions here," Obama said at one fundraiser event. "And this election will probably have the biggest contrast that we've seen maybe since the Johnson-Goldwater election -- maybe before that."

And a new video strives mightily to convince people that Romney is a conservative's dream.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 10:16 AM | Comments (327)
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As Mediobistro's headline put it, Gawker's FoxNews Mole Reveals... Nothing.

One big revelation was something everyone knew or could know if they chose to -- that FoxNews had run some kind of headline about rappers at the White House on FoxNation.

The other big reveal was that Sean Hannity did a two-part interview with Mitt Romney, to be broadcast over two nights, and to suggest the interview was actually being done over two nights (rather than one, as it was), he wanted Romney to change his tie for the second part. Romney declined to wear the pink tie, saying something like "I'm not going to go all Donald Trump." Or something.

A second blockbuster installment reveals that FoxNews' computers are old,their bathrooms aren't nice (or are they? the "mole" is confusing on this key point) and that Bill O'Reilly does in fact use the bathrooms that everyone else does.

Also, the mole is actually so highly placed as to bring back top-secret intel like this:

The lobby isn't too shabby. It's mostly bland and marble, with the usual pieces of inoffensive corporate art. Not so usual, however, are the 25-foot-tall murals featuring a rotating cast of on-air personalities. Up until a couple months ago it was Fox News prime time people plastered up there. Currently it's Fox Business personalities, the grim swollen visages of Neil Cavuto and Lou Dobbs grinning at you, North Korea-style, insisting that all is well at the ratings-challenged business network.

Wow, you saw the lobby?

So, as you can see, this mole was super-connected and was involved in all sorts of editorial decision making light clerical decision-making.

Well, the mole -- who explained that she (I think it's a she-- men don't care about bathrooms*) can't find another job -- is about to lose the only job she can get.

“We found the person and we’re exploring legal options at this time.”

I suppose Gawker will hire her part-time to deliver Memories of FoxNews. Because it would look pretty bad if their source got canned and then they stood by.

* I suppose a guy who was trying to offer big insider secrets about FoxNews, but who didn't have any big insider secrets, might write about bathrooms, just because he had nothing else.

But the picture of toilet paper draped over the gap between stall and wall, for privacy's sake, reads "chick" to me.

Posted by: Ace at 09:11 AM | Comments (354)
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A "strong majority," as Obama would say.

Two-thirds continue to say the high court should throw out either the entire law (38 percent) or at least the part that requires most individuals to obtain coverage (29 percent) or face a penalty; just a quarter want the court to uphold the law as is. Those numbers, like views on the law overall, are essentially unchanged from a month ago.

It occurred to me that that the oral argument, and the shock expressed by liberals that the arguments in favor of ObamaCare were so weak, has a terrific benefit.

The public very quickly, I think, got the signal that despite what the media had been telling them, the case against ObamaCare was strong.

And I think then that they have an expectation it might be struck down -- the public anticipates this, and is okay with it. Actually, they're in favor of it.

Thus, the various claims that striking down ObamaCare would injure the authority of the court are wrong. The public wants the court to strike it down; the public further expects them to strike it down; and the public believes, I think, there is a solid Constitutional rationale for striking it down.

This, in turn -- I hope -- will actually make it easier for the Court to strike it down. They won't be making some out of the blue, shocking decision. They'll be doing what the public expects, and what it wishes them to do.

The release of the oral argument tapes serves as a trial balloon for the proposition that ObamaCare can and should be struck down. The reception to this trial balloon is positive.

So, let's strike it down.

Posted by: Ace at 08:56 AM | Comments (93)
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This is just funny stuff. Via JWF.

But just to get back to Ashley Judd-- does this mean that Andrea Peyser is a member of The Patriarchy?

Well, I guess we should have assumed that.

So, because Peyser is hitting Baldwin on his weight-- that makes Alec Baldwin a victim of The Patriarchy? Of... The Conversation?

Buxom.

Awesme.

Thanks to Ben.

Posted by: Ace at 08:31 AM | Comments (119)
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Ho hum, ho hum. Give it a minute, you'll get used to it.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:56 AM | Comments (212)
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