How is this unfair to Kennedy?

Cheap Shot Update: Nick Kronos points out that running this cartoon would have been unfair:

Posted by: Ace at 08:28 AM | Comments (23)
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Mickey Kaus trots out again his theory that the problem with the Janet Jackson "wardrobe malfunction" wasn't that she had exposed a nipple during some kinky fetish-gear sex-pantomime to millions of unwarned children -- heaven forfend that we should get all upset about something so trivial! -- but that instead that it had showed Justin Timberlake acting in an sexually aggressive manner towards a woman:

Super Sunday reminder to Frank Rich and other righteous anti-FCCers: The big problem with last year's Janet Jackson/Justin Timberlake halftime show was not that people saw Jackson's breast. It wasn't what Jackson did that was offensive. It was what Timberlake did. Here was a massively popular, relatively hip singer whose message was that it was a hip, transgressive thing for men to rip clothes off women when they feel like it (which is quite often). I watched the game with a group of non-evangelical, non-moralistic dads who were uniformly horrified. The problem for them wasn't sex--their kids see flesh all the time in videos--but a form of sexism, not prudery but piggishness.

Mild Content Warning.

Also, Mild Maya Angelou Parody Warning. more...

Posted by: Ace at 07:05 PM | Comments (12)
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It's Vrabel who goes in on offense. Why didn't anyone correct me?

Well, Johnny Coldcuts was drug-addled as usual. But he's halfway there, loose shit or not.

Now Vrabel just needs one on defense.

Oh, and the Pats have to score another thirty points.

Best Prediction: Tall Dave didn't provide an actual score, but he did predict Pats by three. So he wins, because everyone else was wide off the mark.

And... If you missed Freddie Mitchell's ill-advised trash-talking about the Pats' defensive backs, and Rodney Harrison in particular, Son of Nixon recounts it for you.

What is the point of giving the other team additional motivation?

Posted by: Ace at 04:48 PM | Comments (10)
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If you're so inclined, you can kibbitz and predict here.

The Eagles are tough team -- hell of a defense -- and a dangerous team. The fact that I despise them (being a Giants fan) can't cloud my judgment that they are, in fact, hellagood.

But...

The Patriots. For some reason, I just never think the Patriots are really that strong of a team, but damnit if they don't just go out there and win virtually every week. Maybe it's that whole "team" mentality; maybe it is the unquestionable genius of Bill Bellichick.

NRO's The Corner posts stats that teams with recent Superbowl wins tend to beat the competition, time and time again.

So I'm going with the Patriots, not just because they're my second-favorite team, but because, damnit, Bill Bellichick is some sort of lesser deity of football strategy and preparation.

And let's face it, the Pats have already played two Superbowls in the past three weeks, against teams that were better than they (and better than Eagles, probably, too), at least on paper. They didn't just beat the offensively-potent Colts; they made the Colts look, as Shannon Sharpe said (approximately), "foolish."

And the next week out they made the mighty mighty Steelers look foolish as well, making all-time winningest rookie QB Ben Rothlisberger look like a, well, rookie, and shutting down the powerful running tandem of The Bus and the Duce.

I'm predicting a bit of blowout, not because I think that the Patriots are actually that much better than the Iggles, but because most of Superbowl history demonstrates that whoever wins wins big.

Patriots, 44 to 21. And eleven of the Iggles points (FG plus TD w/2 point conversion) come in the garbage-time of the late fourth quarter. There will be no need for Adam Vinateri late-game heroics this time around. His primary duty will be place-kicking and PAT's after touchdowns.

Johnny Coldcuts Update: The foul-mouthed time-travelling baloney sandwich informs me that Teddy Bruchski will score two touchdowns, one on offense and one on defense.

"Teddy gets to dance in the paint twice. You can bet your dirty asses on, ratfuckers!"

And remember: he predicted the Red Sox World Series sweep back in June.

Then again, he's a substance-abusing moron. And a sandwich, too.

Thanks to Enjoy Every Sandwich for the photo, and EES's generous permission to use this pic of Johnny on occasion.

Update: Dave notes a trend of alternating close contests and blowouts in the history of the Superbowl.

If the (approximate) pattern holds, this year should be a blowout.

What's the Wife Gonna Do While You and Your Buddies are Watching the Superbowl and Gang-Farting? SondraK has a suggestion, although it might be too late to order.

Sigh.

Posted by: Ace at 01:49 PM | Comments (31)
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Instapundit quotes Richard Posner's observation that universities are actually the last place one should go for untrammelled self-expression:

But no one who has spent much time around universities thinks they've ever "encourage[d] uncircumscribed intellectual explorations." The degree of self-censorship in universities, as in all institutions, is considerable. Today in the United States, most of the leading research universities are dominated by persons well to the left of Larry Summers, and they don't take kindly to having their ideology challenged, as Summers has now learned to his grief. There is nothing to be done about this, and thoughtful conservatives should actually be pleased. As John Stuart Mill pointed out in On Liberty, when one's ideas are not challenged, one's ability to defend them weakens. Not being pressed to come up with arguments or evidence to support them, one forgets the arguments and fails to obtain the evidence. One's position becomes increasingly flaccid, producing the paradox of thought that is at once rigid and flabby. And thus the academic left today.

I agree with the beginning and partially join and partially dissent from the ending.

Yes, Posner is right about an orthodoxy enforced by official policy and official consequences making that orthodoxy weak and subject to easy demolition. But that's really only true when the contrary point of view is allowed to challenge the orthodoxy, and I don't think that's true, except to a trivial extent, in the academy today.

I take the statement overall as reinforcing my big point on this: universities allow near-absolute free speech rights for professors so long as they're on the left. When they're on the right, they could face professional consequences for being too strident... and that assumes they're even there at all. Most can't even become professors, or tenured professors, because the hiring committees strongly prefer like-minded leftists.

So why on earth should we defend a "right" of Ward Churchill's which is only extended to similarly-minded fools and no one else? Either the right is one to be extended to all or extended to none.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (11)
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And Mickey Kaus, sweet-natured and helpful soul that he is, is gentleman enough to help Howie out. Kurtz will be answering email-submitted questions on Monday -- unless, of course, "prior obligations" suddenly cause him to cancel -- and it seems like an opportune time to ask him when he'll be covering the Eason Jordan affair.

Go here to submit questions for Mr. Kurtz to answer.

Like: When will you seek out the videotape of Jordan's remarks so we can all determine whether they were "taken out of context" or not?

Will you show this videotape on Reliable Sources?

Why haven't you even mentioned this major media story yet, and when do you plan to stop merely "taking a look" at it and actually write about it?

Or try asking the hypothetical with the name "Eason Jordan" stripped out. Like: If a major player in a major global media organization makes unsubstantiated charges against the US Military, shouldn't the rest of the media take him to task for such irresponsible conspiracy-mongering?

I'm sure you can think of others. Keep them polite. But pointed.

Posted by: Ace at 01:19 PM | Comments (4)
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I am proud to say I saw no movies at Sundance. I was too busy cultivating a nice dose of the plague.

This Newsmax article suggests I didn't miss too much.

Although I'm quite sure there were some worthies in the bunch.

Posted by: Ace at 03:37 PM | Comments (9)
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And you know this, as Sherlock Holmes said, by the dog who didn't bark.

The media is embargoing this story, as noted by Captain's Quarters and Kausfiles. (More on Kausfiles' prescience later.)

I don't have Lexis/Nexis, but I do have Google. Let's compare the media's reaction to two different controversial recent remarks.

This search -- for "Dobson Spongebob," for Dobson's largely deliberately misquoted remarks about Spongebob Squarepants being gay -- turns up a fair number of MSM articles. CNN, The New York Times, MSNBC, BBC News -- all weigh in on how horrible it was for Dobson to not claim that Spongebob Squarepants was gay (although of course the party line is that's precisely what he said).

On the other hand, this search -- "Eason Jordan Davos target journalists" -- turns up nothing but blog references, at least for the first five pages. (I assume an MSM source would at least make it to the first five pages.)

Why the interest in the first story and the glaring disinterest in the second?

The simple truth is obvious. The media is an near-oligopoly of interlocked corporations, the same as auto manufacturers, pharmaceutical companies, or cigarette makers. They claim their first priority is reporting the truth to the American people-- but then, car makers claim their first priority is delivering the best-made, most-affordable cars to the American people, too.

In fact, the first priorities of anyone in a corporate culture are 1) protect and advance your own career; 2) curry favor with those who can help with priority 1; 3) protect and advance the corporation generally, as that will advance priorities 1 and 2; and 4) protect and advance the industry generally, as you never know when you'll wind up working for another corporation within the industry, and doing so advances priorities 1, 2, and 3.

Just as in Rathergate, the media was far behind the curve in reporting on the egregiously-bad hoaxes perpertrated by CBSNews; the Boston Globe wen so far as to deliberately mischaracterize an expert's remarks (as were correctly reported by Bill from InDC). The media had a corporate and industry interest in avoiding the story, and, once avoiding it became impossible, defending it (and themselves, generally) from external critique and attack.

And so it goes. We are now on Day 7 after Eason Jordan "reported" that the American military had targeted and murdered 12 journalists in Iraq, and the MSM has not seen fit to report this story at all.

Either the story is true or it is not. If it is true, then where are the enormous, "flood-the-zone" resources that such a story would demand? Why are we not hearing about ace reporters being assigned to crack this outrage wide open?

And, if it's not true -- as of course it's not; after all, if it were true, why hasn't Eason Jordan's CNN already reported on it -- then the MSM must knock it down, and furthermore must castigate Eason Jordan in the sharpest terms possible for grossly violating journalistic standards in relaying unsubstantiated rumors as fact.

If this were a more trivial matter -- if a less-senior media type had merely trafficked in unsubstantiated allegations about, say, Brad & Jen's sex life -- they'd have little compunction about throwing the red flag.

But this is big. Eason Jordan is big. CNN is big. His allegations are huge.

The media is therefore trying to simply make the story go away by ignoring it.

A pattern that has become far too common.

As has been said of big corporations faced with possible bankrupcy-- Eason Jordan and CNN are too big to fail. Or to be allowed to fail, actually; they've already failed, of course. The public just can't be allowed to know this.

The Devil and Howard Kurtz: For a long time, Mickey Kaus has questioned the independence of Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz. He's noted, repeatedly, that as Kurtz is also on the payroll of CNN -- hosting its "Reliable Sources" program -- he's not quite free to comment candidly on CNN's breaches.

And one of Howie Kurtz's biggest schticks, of course, is the old "conflict of interest." Kaus has noted, until it's put me to sleep, that Kurtz is in fact hopelessly conflicted as regards CNN.

I never much cared about this issue before, and I tended to just gloss over Kaus' umpteenth bitchfest about the situation. Too inside baseball, too ticky-tack.

Well, it turns out that Kaus was right all along, wasn't he?

As Kaus notes, Day 7 of Jordangate and still not one whisper of a mention from Howie Kurtz.

Bear in mind: This is precisely the sort of story that Howie Kurtz covers. In fact, this is one of the juicier media stories to come down the pike since, well, Rathergate. And yet-- not even a mention!

But have no fear! Howie Kurtz sends Jim Geraghty a brief reply to a query informing him "We are taking a look."

A long, long, long look, it seems like. Perhaps Kurtz will complete his look once Jordan steps down, or Kurtz ends his association with CNN.

Great Minds... Insta-Man has a similar take.

Posted by: Ace at 02:31 PM | Comments (24)
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Instapundit and Evan Coyne Maloney both think that Ward Churchill should get his tenure, despite the viciously anti-American, pro-mass-murder, and arguably seditious essay he wrote.

Fair enough.

But I have a question.

If I were a professor at Colorado Univerisity, and I made similarly inflammatory and hateful remarks from the right -- like, for example, writing an essay after 9-11 calling for genocidal nuclear strikes on all the problem children of the Muslim world-- would I get to keep my job? Would I get tenure?

I grow weary of the suggestion that conservatives must be more principled than the left. That sounds nice in theory, but in practical terms, it's simply an acceptance of a double-standard.

Many on the right argue, correctly, that we cannot extend full Geneva Convention rights to captured terrorists as they refuse to extend such protections to our troops. In other words, fair treatment requires recipricocity. Without recipricocity, it's simply a license for the other side to behave viciously without suffering any undue consequences.

I would think a similar tit-for-tat principle should apply here. I am sick of being treated as a second-class citizen because my beliefs aren't quite as protected by the imperatives of free speech as the rantings of vicious leftist monsters.

Aren't Instapundit and Mr. Maloney? Do they imagine that continuing to act like doormats is likely to change this situation?

The Late Lamented Steven den Beste Update: The rigorously intellectual case for tit-for-tat behavior -- as opposed to purely principled, "I shall act according to my conscience no matter how viciously you behave towards me" behavior -- is made here.

Worth reading if you haven't read it yet.

Goldstein Vs. Allah! Protein Wisdom also supports Churchill's purported right to justify terroristic murder, and he and Allah (and many other fine commenters) got into an interesting discussion about it.

Blog Breaking News? Jeff G. of Protein Wisdom says Chuchill will be "shitcanned."

I don't think that word has ever been used more appropriately than with respect to this particular excresence.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (70)
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Not only have they taken to capturing fully-poseable action figures named "Cody," they're now adding clumsy footage of surface-to-surface missiles to aircraft wreckage video in order to suggest that they shot the aircraft down.

These geniuses couldn't even come up with surface-to-air missile footage to make their "practical joke" more realistic.

Posted by: Ace at 12:59 PM | Comments (3)
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