Has anyone ever seen a black PETA member? I'm just wondering, because I don't think I have:

RICHMOND, Va. Aug 13, 2005 — People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is reconsidering a campaign comparing images of animal abuse with those of slavery after complaints from civil rights groups and others.

The animal rights group's "Animal Liberation" campaign included 12 panels juxtaposing pictures of black people in chains with shackled elephants and other provocative images.

The Norfolk-based group wrapped up the first leg of the tour in Washington on Thursday, visiting 17 cities before deciding to put the tour on hold.

"We're not continuing right now while we evaluate," said Dawn Carr, a PETA spokeswoman. "We're reviewing feedback we've received most of it overwhelmingly positive and some of it quite negative."

One panel showed a black civil rights protester being beaten at a lunch counter beside a photo of a seal being bludgeoned. Another panel, titled "Hanging," showed a graphic photo of a white mob surrounding two lynched blacks, their bodies hanging from tree limbs, while a nearby picture showed a cow hanging in a slaughterhouse.

Controversy erupted Aug. 8, when the display was in New Haven, Conn.

"There was one man who began shouting that the exhibit was racist," Carr said. "Then, there was a lot of shouting."

Carr said PETA used the shocking images to prove a point: Whether it's humans harming animals or each other, all point to an oppressive mind-set.

However, officials with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People aren't buying it.

"PETA operates by getting publicity any way they can," said John White, an NAACP spokesman. "They're comparing chickens to black people?"

PETA and the NAACP fighting.

Lordy, do I love Karl Rove.

Thanks to Eric.

Posted by: Ace at 07:22 AM | Comments (29)
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So ruled a Fairfax Co. (Va.) judge, deciding that the presumption of being under the influence at .08 blood alcohol content denied defendents the presumption of innocence.

I think we could get too silly about drunk-driving laws, but I think here the judge is just being an idiot. You can have a law saying that you can't drive if your BAC is .08 or above, whether you're drunk or impaired or not. The law would be against driving with a BAC at that level, not necessarily against whatever effect it has on you.

And that's basically what these laws do.

Perhaps, in the interest of formalism, these laws should be rewritten, so that they do not say you are presumed under the influence at .08, but rather simply that you are committing a violation with a BAC of .08 or more (no presumption of being under the influence; you just can't drive with that BAC).

If that's what the judge demands, fine. Law is a formalistic thing, so if he wants to be a bear on formalism, so be it. But rewriting the laws will take ten minutes and the net effect will ultimately be the same.

Saying that a test showing you're at .08 or above denies you the presumption of innocence is like saying a fingerprint match showing your fingerprints on a murder weapon denies you the presumption of innocence. Some evidence is so strong that it makes life tough for you in court, and it's very hard to rebut; this judge seems to feel that such very-strong evidence is therefore unconstitutional.

So, if you've got overwhelming, smoking-gun evidence against you, you walk free. You can only be convicted on sketchier evidence.

Make sense? Not to me.

That said, let's not go anywhere lower than .08 with these laws, huh?

Thanks to Trey Evans.

Posted by: Ace at 01:47 PM | Comments (35)
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A lot of people on the right are walking back from the Able Danger story, given the 9/11 Commission's emphatic denials and the lack, thusfar, of any corroborating evidence of the charge. (Scroll down to later in the article.)

Even Weldon is backing down, saying he's uncertain the name Mohammad Atta was on the list of suspects AD ID'd.

As Snopes might say, this story currently falls into the category of Undetermined authenticity and import.

A black eye for the blogosphere? Well, not quite. Personally I got excited by the story when the AP seemed to confirm the story in its broad outlines.

Plus, the last act isn't written yet. Or maybe it is. We don't know yet.

But more importantly: give the dextrosphere credit. We sometimes get too far ahead of a story, but when the facts suggest we've gone too far ahead, we do walk it back and disseminate the information that suggests we may have been wrong.

Compare that to the sinistrosphere, which is still yapping about trans-Afghanistan oil pipelines, paying the Taliban billions in US aid, and flying out bin Ladin family members when no other planes were cleared for take-off.

Walking Back The Walk-Back Update: Rumors of the Able Danger scandal's death may have been greatly overstated. An interview with members of the Able Danger team confirms they were watching him a year before the attacks and even knew he was holding meetings with terrorists.

Thanks to rls.

Posted by: Ace at 01:36 PM | Comments (10)
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Maloney and Malkin get results!

Having misquoted Al Franken to make a somewhat-damning quote into an anodyne one and being called on it ("reverse Dowdification"), the NYT meekly corrects.

Quite a few papers have run the AP story on what Malkin dubs "Air Enron." Probably not very prominently, but the embargo is lifted.

Although Powerline notes that the stalwarts at the Mineanapolis (Red) Star are continuing to fight the good fight against keeping their readers informed about major stories.

Kudos, Red Star! It takes courage of a Sheenan-like magnitude to be so vigilant about coccooning a left-liberal audience from stories that would cause them discomfort.

Posted by: Ace at 01:25 PM | Comments (2)
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They are expected to pass a resolution condemning their own fence as "a racist zionist land-grab" by the end of next week.

The United Nations

In the words of Joe Jackson, "Don't you know that it's different for Jews?"

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (2)
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Apparently Koko kept signing "Show Your Tits" and "Come on baby, I gots me some beads."

The women allege they were pressured to show the massive mammal their mammaries or else face "consequences."

Oh, and just in case it's not weird enough already, Koko is said to have a "nipple fetish."

Forcing women to bear their breasts to a six-hundred-pound gorilla with a nipple fetish? Someone better call OSHA; this is legitmately dangerous.

Why, it's almost as dangerous as sitting on a roadside in Crawford, Texas and giving interviews to a fawning world press.

Thanks to FasterPlease.

Posted by: Ace at 11:26 AM | Comments (15)
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My title, not Varifrank's.

What other conclusion can you come to when reading a quote like this?

“We need to get our troops out of Iraq. The only reason Bush wants to stay there is because his buddies are getting rich and feasting off the blood of our children”

Well, she certainly seems to have learned the lingo from her new anti-semitic buddies. "Feasting on the blood of children" is one of their favorite go-to slurs.

One question: Is heroism transferable by will? Casey Sheehan was a hero; Cindy Sheehan is someone coping with a horrible loss. She didn't volunteer to have her son killed, and she seems to not be acting particularly brave in becoming a media darling.

I'd love to be a media darling; don't get me wrong. Just not sure how that is indicative of courage.

But the left has decided she's a hero. A hero for risking getting her ass wetly kissed by Katie Couric, Charlie Gibson, and a hundred dimwitted but good-looking celebrities that wouldn't otherwise piss on her if she were on fire.

Thanks to Jim.

More: Confederate Yankee notes that freshly-minted geopolitics expert Cindy Sheehan's toughtful foreign-policy platform is just one of genocide through pacificsm.

Question: If we are to credit Cindy Sheehan's opinions on war simply because she lost a son and now wishes an end to war...

...should we also listen to those who lost husbands and wives in the 9/11 attack and whose emotion-driven response was to wish for nuclear strikes on major Muslim cities and holy sites?

Just curious. Because there's a lot of strong emotion on both sides of this. I wonder -- I wonder so much -- why the LMSM is only willing to publicize the Give Peace a Chance sort of emotionalism.

Criticizing Cindy Sheehan-- The New "Hate Speech"!!! Talk about chilling my right to dissent. Protein Wisdom notes that the left is attempting (rather unsuccessfully, as the title of my post suggests) to place any sort of criticism of Cindy "Mr. DeMille, I'm Ready For My Close Up" Sheehan as beyond the pale.

After all, she lost someone in the War on Terror.

I guess that means that Ted Olson, who lost a wife in the sneak attack that began the hot phase of the War on Terror, should be empowered to call for carpet bombings of Muslim cities if it strikes his fancy... and no criticism of his decisions will be countenanced.

Posted by: Ace at 10:50 AM | Comments (27)
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Wanted to write a script about this for a while; looks like I was beaten to the punch. Very fun and exciting foot-chase featuring real stunts (by "real," I mean a lot of this was done without any photographic/cutting-away trickery; they were just filmed live as they happened).

So cool. Is it too late for me to learn parkour, the Sport of the Future?

Beats Gymkata all to hell.

Thanks to Craig.

From the Sublime to the Ridiculous Update: Two jackasses think it would be a good idea for one of them to shoot a bottle off the other's head.

The first question of every gun application should be, "Are you a retard?"

H/T Dave From It's Old, who finds that the Washington Post is in full Walter Cronkite mode in declaring Iraq unwinnable.

Funny Quip About Parkour: From Apoethesis:

If anyone was going to turn running away into an art form, it's a foregone conclusion it'd be the French.

Posted by: Ace at 10:29 AM | Comments (3)
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We already knew that Iraq was merely a ploy by the neo-con Zionists who control the planet from the basement of a brothel in Tel Aviv. We didn't need Michael Moore to alert us to the theft of Iraq's crude oil in order to enrich the good old boys at Halliburton. But why on Earth did we liberate a country which makes Bedrock look cosmopolitan by comparison?

I'll tell you why! With Major League Baseball cracking down on steroids, we needed a new market to replace all that lost revenue. And what better place than Kabul to do so?

Case closed!

Posted by: Tanker at 08:49 AM | Comments (4)
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Manifest Destiny for splodeydopes.

And who do you suppose the media will blame for the upcoming bloodbath?

Posted by: LauraW. at 12:19 PM | Comments (21)
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