And so it goes:

Indonesia told foreign troops helping tsunami victims to get out of the country soon and defended tough new restrictions on aid workers, while rich nations prepared to freeze Jakarta's debt repayments.

Vice President Yusuf Kalla said foreign troops should leave tsunami-hit Aceh province on Sumatra island as soon as they finish their relief mission, staying no longer than three months.

"Three months are enough. In fact, the sooner the better," Kalla was quoted by the state Antara news agency as saying.

How's "tomorrow" sound to you, feller?

Compromising With the Uncompromising: Get ready to spit nails. A "compromise" has been reached with the Indonesians-- Marines distributing food and water to them will NOT be permitted to carry their weapons to defend themselves, should radical Islamicists attempt to kill or kidnap them.

But, of course, what are the odds of that happening? No greater than 9 in 10, so everything's just jake, right?

Posted by: Ace at 12:27 PM | Comments (19)
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This is a difficult subject to write about, obviously, since people have so many different -- and deeply felt -- opinions on the subject.

I'm curious, though-- why does Oliver Willis presume himself permitted to keep harping on Michelle Malkin's Filipino heritage?

Let's put aside, for the moment, the question of whether a black person can demean another black person in the most thuggishly racist of terms.

Willis is black; Malkin is Fillipino. Even if we accept, for the sake of argument, that blacks are allowed to call each other "Uncle Tom," "Aunt Jemima" and worse (much worse), how does that "rule," if it is a rule, extend to Willis' attacks on Malkin?

Is he extending the rule to say that any minority can use racially-charged attacks on any other minority? Would he say, then, that a Korean or Hassidim can attack him on racial grounds?

I doubt it. I doubt that very much.

I think there's too much PC in the world. I don't like when people attack me for plainly-inoffensive jokes, just because they might have a racial or "homophobic" component, and I don't really relish applying this same thin-skinned standard to Willis.

But the left has announced these standards; they are the ones who most zealously prosecute racial "wrongdoing." They're the first ones to cry "racism" or "homophobia."

If they're going to employ such a strict standard against their enemies, doesn't it behoove them to observe that strict standard themselves?

Otherwise, we might begin to think that they're really not so committed to the idea of tolerance, color-blindness, and exquisitely finely-tuned racial senstitivity, so much as they're committed to using these standards as political clubs against their enemies while freely indulging in the occasional bit of race-baiting themselves.

We might begin to suspect that, you understand.

I think we should all give each other a bit of a break on these matters, myself.

Much of it depends on context and the spirit in which the joke is intended, of course. But I find that those on the left stubbornly refuse to take context and spirit into account when they're dealing with those on the right.

For example:

A long time ago Ann Coulter wrote an article in which she pointed out that Dick Clarke had singled out Condi Rice as being utterly clueless about Al Qaeda. Ann Coulter made the point that, were Clarke Republican-friendly rather than Democrat-friendly, there would have been a predictably obnoxious firestorm of outrage over his singling out a black woman as being incompetent, while not making similar charges against any white guys in the Bush Administration.

A fair point, I think.

So, to amplify Coulter's point in a humorous manner, I wrote Top Ten Other Judgments Dick Clarke Made About Condi Rice Based on Her, errrm, Appearance. (The link may take you too high; you will probably have to scroll down.)

Now, the whole point of the Top Ten was to accuse Dick Clarke of the most retrograde and absurd sort of racism. I didn't really think he was guilty of such racism; but I was exaggerating for comic effect. And of course Condi Rice wasn't a target at all; and neither, of course, was her race. I was defending her, in a roundabout, attack-her-enemies way.

The list got republished in a lot of forums. And I still remember one obnoxious liberals' comment on the list:

That must be the most racist thing I have ever read in my life.

Racist, she was saying, because I was accusing Clarke of having very over-the-top racist beliefs about Condi Rice. It just did not dawn on her at all that I was not endorsing such beliefs, but putting them into Clarke's mouth in order to attack him.

Either it didn't dawn on her, or she just deliberately ignored the clear intent of the piece in order to call a conservative a racist.

Either way. She was either stupid or an opportunistic and unprincipled partisan.

We see this all the time. Liberal comedians are permitted to make what I call "ironic racist" jokes-- they're not actually endorsing the racist remark; they're parodizing it in order to demean the sort of people who really do think such things -- and liberal crowds whoop and clap and laugh, understanding perfectly well that Jon Stewart (or whoever) had good motives in making the joke.

But they seem to utterly refuse to even contemplate the possibility that a conservative might similarly have good motives for such joking.

Jon Steward and I could make the exact same joke, with the exact same intent, but liberals would hoot for him and call me a racist.

It gets old, guys. We're tired of the double standard, and if you were more principled -- or simply more civil in dealing with political opponents -- you would also be tired of the double-standard.

What does this have to do with ol' Ollie? I'm not sure if has anything to do with it. Filet-O-Fish does seem to be making racial-allusions, if not racial insults, against someone he clearly despises; there doesn't seem to be any irony in his joke. He calls Michelle Malkin "Michelle Malagang" to emphasize she's Fillipino, for no particular reason I can divine.

I don't think he'd like it much if someone began referring to him as Oliver Chaka Zulu or something. And yet that would be the same sort of "joke."

So what is it, Oliver? Is that sort of "joke" permitted or not? it cannot be the case that you have license to indulge in race-baiting while your opponents are to be castigated for it.

Either live up to the standard you impose on your opponents or clean up your own goddamned act.

Wills is In Good Company, At Least! Check out the very thoughtful, tolerant emails Michelle Malkin gets day after day from enlightened, racially sensitive liberals:

Hi Self hating flat nosed Filipino Bitch! As we used to refer to your kind - little brown Fucking Machines. Looks like this little LBFM learned to whore in a different way to make some pesos. How sweet.

Classy.

Posted by: Ace at 12:03 PM | Comments (43)
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I'm not going to link this idiot, but here's some of what he has to say:

Poor Widdle Michelle

"Widdle." That's the mark of an important essayist.

Taking time off from writing about how all the Asians and Arabs should be rounded up and sent to internment camps,

Odd, I don't remember that.

Michelle Magalang whines about those poor, misunderstood minoritiy conservatives and how everybody now understands that they're on the take.

What is this "Magalang" thing? Is that her unmarried name? What does that have to do with the price of tea in China?

Willis sure seems to be really pushing the point that Malkin is non-white.

We all sort of noticed that, Ollie. And she sort of mentions her Phillipines heritage a couple of times a month. So she's not trying to "pass," Ollie, as you attempt to "pass" for a thoughtful writer who weighs something less than three bills.

Here's a tip for Magalang, JC Watts, Armstrong Williams and the rest of you: quit taking money from rich white guys and berating your own people, and we'll quit calling you out for the buckrakers that you are. Deal?

Rich white guys? Like George Soros, Ollie? Word on the street is he keeps you flush in Filet-O-Fishes.

And as for "berating your own people" -- tell it to Cosby, Ollie.

Your idea of "racial authenticity" is the same as any other hard lefty-- you refuse to admit any real problems caused by your race, or any other minority race, preferring to always blame everything on White Devils.

Malkin has every right to castigate the Philippine Government for its cowardice in Iraq, just as you, Roundy McHeartPalpitations, so whiningly announce your right to castigate the US government.

Maybe it's time for another one of Willis' racially-sensitive "jokes" about Malkin, like his infamous "If it's brown, get down!"

Jack. Fucking. Ass.

Thanks to Hubs and Spokes for making me angry.

Posted by: Ace at 11:12 AM | Comments (21)
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I don't think we're all whining, but Ellis thinks that many bloggers are unfairly dismissive of the report.

I sort of agree with that... until I read a blogger making a strong case that the Panel cravenly punted on the two central issues under investigation: whether the documents are DEFINITELY forged (newsflash: they are) and whether or not Mapes and Rather & Co. had a political bias driving their "myopic zeal" (another stunner: they do, obviously).

Still, he makes some good points about the glass being half-full. The report is very damning of virtually every slapdash step taken in this botched "investigative journalism" piece.

And he also quotes Mickey Kaus' great line about Andy Heyward. How did Andy Heyward escape being fired? By employing a reverse-Nuremburg defense: "I vas only giving orders."

But Ellis expects Heyward will be "resigned" after a Decent Interval.

Posted by: Ace at 10:55 AM | Comments (1)
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Glenn Reynolds links two worth-reading pieces and comments on them.

From a Howie Kurtz piece:

"In any fair-minded assessment of how CBS performed and why they so badly butchered their own standards, [political bias] has to be part of the explanation," said former New York Times reporter Steve Roberts, now a professor at George Washington University. "It's not just that they wanted to be first, they wanted to be first with a story that was critical of the president."

Meanwhile, Howard Finemann, who's liberal (of course) but fairly non-objectionable, notes the age of "mainstream" (i.e., center-liberal) media dominance is at an end:

In this situation, the last thing the ["American Mainstream Media Party"] needed was to aim wildly at the president — and not only miss, but be seen as having a political motivation in attacking in the first place. Were Dan Rather and Mary Mapes after the truth or victory when they broadcast their egregiously sloppy story about Bush's National Guard Service? The moment it made air it began to fall apart, and eventually was shredded by factions within the AMMP itself, conservative national outlets and by the new opposition party that is emerging: The Blogger Nation. It's hard to know now who, if anyone, in the "media" has any credibility.

And, as Walter Cronkite would say, that's the way it is.

Howard Finemann joins other legacy media scribes in a ritual I'm sanguine about: petting the wolverines.

He realizes that this alternate media/blog thing isn't going away-- at least not soon. It's part of the new normal in the media, and their previous efforts to simply ignore and demean just haven't worked.

A new strategy, then: co-optation.

And let's face it, most bloggers are easily co-opted, if I can use myself as an example. We hate the legacy media, but we do wish to be acknowledged by it; we're a bit like the geeks who both hate the popular kids and yet long to be accepted by them.

It doesn't take much to make the geeks loathe you less: just a nice word here and there is enough. (Alas, we should be more demanding, but human nature is what it is.)

And so another instance of the major media petting the wolverines, giving them a nice scritch behind the ears to keep them from going into berserker-blood-fury mode.

It works-- a little. I've always liked Finemann, despite the fact that he frequently writes sorta boringly down-the-middle pox-on-both-houses safe think-pieces for Newsweek; he is a decent reporter, though. And petting the wolverines will probably earn him a little extra goodwill.

But such gestures aren't really enough. Bloggers crave validation and acceptance, but much more than that, we crave a genuinely fair-and-balanced media which either jettisons its centrist-liberal Democratic agenda or at least forthrightly announces that agenda and admits that its reportage is colored by its desire to see the "right people" and "right ideas" prevail.

Petting the wolverines will calm them some, but at some point, a wolverine's got to eat. That's the nature of the beast.

Sharks Need Petting Too Update: And Stefan "Shark" Sharkansky gets a little nose-rub from the Seatle Post-Intelligencer.

Loose Shit: Well, I managed to misspell just about everyone's name in this piece originally. I think my spelling has integrity and conscious now, though.

Posted by: Ace at 10:47 AM | Comments (5)
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No one in the media seems to have paid much attention, but apparently a peace accord was struck between government and rebel forces in the Sudan on Sunday.

Posted by: Ace at 10:28 AM | Comments (2)
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Another Iowahawk mystery:

Thornburgh peeled off his tortoise shell glasses and gave me a blank stare.

"We've been through this several times now, Rather," he sighed. "The evidence was fake. Forgeries. Made up from whole cloth. There is no Lucy Ramirez. The entire TxANG case is closed."

"So," I pondered, "you're thinking we need to set up a stakeout in Crawford?"

"Rather," he bellowed, "The Guard letters were on Starbucks stationery, and originally discovered in the trunk of Mary's '99 Hundai. Military officers do not address each other as 'Dude' and 'Bro.' Mary FedExed them to Terry McAuliffe six times for spell checking."

"No speaky Esperanto, Commissioner! What's your angle?"

"You ran the story seven days before contacting document experts, and when you did, they were recruited from a methadone clinic. You spent $47,000 of network money on a schizophrenic man who said he could build a steam-powered word processor and a time machine."

I planted my hands on the desk, and leaned over into Thornburgh's face.

"I see where this is all going, Commissioner. You're in on it too! You're just going to sit there and take it when there is a criminal in high office who stole over 20 XBox systems from Texas National Guard!"

"That's enough, Rather," he growled. "Turn in your microphone. You're suspended."

"Too late Thornburgh. I'm suspending myself, at full pay."

I slammed the door behind me. It looked like this investigation would be strictly freelance.

Thanks for the tip to Phil and Nick. And thanks to Iowahawk for mentioning me.

Posted by: Ace at 10:19 AM | Comments (1)
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What is this? The Corner? (I wish.)

Okay, since that last puzzle got so many responses, let me offer another one.

I will caveat this first: This one is pretty easy. The real math-heads here are going to laugh at this one. This is really a middle-school sort of problem... but then, a lot of you have probably forgotten all math past middle-school.

And it bothered me a lot when I heard it as a kid. So here we go:

Three men walk into a hotel. They ask how much it will be to share a room. They're told it's thirty dollars. (Umm... it's a crap hotel. In Honduras. Okay?)

So each man ponies up ten dollars to the concierge and then goes up to the room.

After taking the money, the concierge realizes that he's over-charged the men-- it's the weekend, and the rate for a single room should be twenty five dollars. So he summons the bellboy, gives him five singles, and tells him to deliver the men their refund.

Well, as the bellboy's going up the stairs, he realizes that five dollars is going to be hard to divide between three people. So he decides he'll just tell the men the actual rate was $27, give the men each a single dollar back, and pocket $2 as his reward for helping the men avoid a lot of squabbling over who's going to get shorted on the refund.

And that's what he does.

Now, each man paid nine dollars for the room. Three times nine is twenty seven, and there's two more dollars in the bellboy's pocket.

27 plus two more in the bellboy's pocket equals twenty-nine dollars total. But they paid $30 originally. Where did the dollar go?

Hint: Actually, I guess this isn't so much a math problem as flim-flam problem.

A Non-Math Puzzle: In your basement you have a light. There are three light-switches on your first floor, one of which turns on that light, but you don't know which. (The other two are dead switches which no longer operate anything in the house.)

You cannot see the light from the first floor of your house.

How can you tell which switch controls the light by making only a single trip down to the basement to check the light?

Posted by: Ace at 08:22 PM | Comments (49)
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SondraK was there.

So was some "stupid bint," as SondraK puts it, who is still waving around "Bush Lied" placards.

At a protest about the Washington State gubernatorial election.

I'm going to start my own 537 group. It's going to be called, No,Really,Seriously,WeFuckingMeanIt,It'sGenuinelyTimeToFuckingMoveOn.Org.

Anyone want to fund me to get this thing up and running?

Posted by: Ace at 08:10 PM | Comments (8)
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Dogblog got a really good explanation, apparently from Dean Esmay, who first posted the puzzle:

Say you plan to change doors.

2/3 of the time, your first pick is wrong. When that happens, Monty HAS to show you the right door, as there is only one empty door for him to open, he opens it, and you choose the other door, which will necessarily have the prize.

1/3 of the time, your first pick is right, you change doors, and you're screwed.
So 2/3 of the time, you win.

I think that's pretty convincing.

And This Is Even More Elegant Update: "Right" offers...

Assume you choose door A.

Monty reveals nothing and offers to let you trade for BOTH B AND C.

This is essentially the same as the original question.

Revealing the empty door won't change it.

That's a good way to put it. Forget about the "opening wrong doors" show-biz.

Posted by: Ace at 04:51 PM | Comments (107)
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