Oh, Lordy:

Claude Allen's life sentence

Did the pressures of being a black conservative take a toll on the former Bush aide?

...

I don't support conservatism in its current iteration, and I support black conservatives even less...

Why? Because they don't display the requisite level of gratitude for what white liberals have supposedly done for them?

... but we cannot ignore the racial implications of this latest Republican fall from grace.

We can't? I was kind of ignoring it. I didn't really see any implications.

As usual, conservatives ignore race while liberals won't shut up about it.

Imagine if a conservative wrote about a black conservative (or black liberal, for that matter) breaking the law, and announced "we cannot ignore the racial implications of this."

Here is a decidedly white-collar black man getting clipped for a blue-collar crime associated with economic necessity, one that practically guarantees prison time for most black men in this country. (Even if he's ultimately convicted, it's doubtful that Allen will end up behind bars.)

A first-time non-violent offense -- fraud, not even actual theft or robbery -- "practically guarantees prison time for most black men in this country"?

Really?

Here is a man who, like most black conservatives, has had to do an awful lot of personal and political rationalizing to pay dues, which included apprenticing with then-North Carolina senator and habitual racist Jesse Helms and opposing the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

...

Loyalty has been the price of admission to this administration, and black conservatives have proved to be more loyal than most.

Here it comes...

That has unfortunately, but not always unfairly, invited comparisons to slave times, when the most loyal blacks were those who worked in closest proximity to their white masters — house Negroes, as they were derisively known. Such Negroes gained privilege but lost standing in their own community, a price that might have been reasonable if they were eventually granted the same status as the whites they so assiduously served. They weren't, of course; race has always mattered. And it matters now, though the dynamic is more subtle and devious.

...

It's hard to imagine that such compromises and cognitive dissonance don't exact a psychological toll at some point, and Allen's alleged dabbling in crime might have been that point for him.

Was he testing the limits of a power he wasn't sure he had, but needed? Was he fatally overconfident — fatal indeed for a black man — that his position shielded him from the consequences of crime, or at least the consequences of petty theft? After a career of always conducting himself appropriately, as his mentor Clarence Thomas reportedly advised, did he finally crack under the pressure? (All black folk, even conservatives, know they have to be three times as upstanding just to get along.) Was he acting out a latent bitterness at being denied a spot on the federal appeals court by a Senate that found his resume too thin and his past reference to gays as "queer" too cavalier for comfort? Or was he a closeted compulsive grifter who would have done this anyway? Hard to know.

Hard to know, but apparently pretty easy to get this kind of off-the-cuff bullshit-session nonsense printed in the LA Times.

Was he fatally overconfident — fatal indeed for a black man ...

Is it just me, or is that kind of racist?

The op-ed was written by Erin Aubrey Kaplan. Her name alone indicates that Erin Aubrey Kaplan has her finger on the pulse of the black male zeitgeist.

Thanks to Allah.

Related: Police found dozens of thirty year old Trapper Keepers in Mr. Allen's garage.

Posted by: Ace at 09:28 AM | Comments (28)
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And it seems he isn't. Arianna displayed her usual amount of dishonesty and self-promotion here:

Oscar-winner George Clooney may make politically provocative films like "Syriana." But he doesn't write politically provocative blogs.

So imagine his ire when Arianna Huffington used some of his recent answers to political questions in a way that makes it look as if he wrote one for her Huffington Post blog site.

"He doesn't object to the quotes," says Stan Rosenfield, Clooney's valiant rep. "He said those things and those are his views. Arianna asked for permission to use the quotes and he gave it to her. What he didn't give permission for was the use of his quotes without source attributions to make it appear that he wrote a blog for her site. Which he did not. When he saw the posting Monday, we called and asked her to make the change, to simply attribute the quotes and make it clear that he did not write a blog. But she refused. And it's now Wednesday."

I thought those comments seemed stale. I've read most of that stuff before. I thought Clooney was just repeating his old schtick. But no, Arianna was trying to make it appear as if a real celebrity -- Alec Baldwin doesn't count, unless we've gone back in time to 1992 -- was posting on her site.

Update: Arianna claims it was all honest misunderstanding.

"Honest" in the sense that she believed she had the go-ahead from Clooney to do something dishonest -- knit together some of his previous rantings and put it in the form of a "blog post," claiming he had "written" the "post."

It's still dishonest. She's just claiming Clooney was complicit in the dishonesty.

Let's just admit they were both assholes and be done with it.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 09:09 AM | Comments (22)
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Yup, she's been oppressed by The White Devil for all seven of her years. The White Devil is the number one oppressor in the world.

The number two oppressor? Brussel sprouts. Yuccchh!

Anyway, this miniature Maya Angelou, this pipsqueak Paul Robeson, has a bright Black Power future ahead of her.

A 7-year-old New York poet has fired up adults following a racially charged performance at a middle school.

Autum Ashante, who is home-schooled and lives with her father in Mount Vernon, was invited by a music teacher to present her poetry during a Black History Month program at Peekskill Middle School on Feb. 28. She has written her own poetry and performed in front of audiences since she was 4.

Before reciting a poem, Ashante asked only the black students in the audience to stand and recite with her the "Black Child's Pledge" by the Black Panther Party's Shirley Williams. It begins, "I pledge allegiance to my black people. I pledge to develop my mind and body to the greatest extent possible. I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my people in their struggle for liberation."

Ashante then presented her poem "White Nationalism Put U In Bondage," which rails against Christopher Columbus, J.P. Morgan and Charles Darwin: "White nationalism is what put you in bondage. Pirate and vampires like Columbus, Morgan and Darwin."

"Black lands taken from your hands, by vampires with no remorse," the poem states. "They took the gold, the wisdom and all of the storytellers. They took the black women, with the black man weak."

On one hand, she's writing about J.P. Morgan.

On the other hand, she's writing about vampires.

Sean M. sorta thinks the J.P. Morgan stuff is coming from her dad and the "pirate and vampire" crap is coming from her.

I agree. Because it reminds me of a poem I wrote when I was seven:

Black Kids Keep Stealing My Trapper Keeper

By [name deleted]
2nd Grade English class
Poetry
Mrs. Guissendurg

Black kids keep stealing my trapper keeper
How can I organize my important papers
and of course my Trappers, with their diagonal pockets
keeping everything in
if I don't have my Trapper Keeper to hold my Trappers?

Black kids keep on oppressing me.
Taking my Trapper Keeper
My Coleco Electronic Football
My Zany Zappers flashing LED sunglasses
My Mister Microphone
My Soul

They are like pirates and Tyranasaurus Rexes
and other evil monsters
like ghosts and wolves with bat-wings
and other cool-ass shit
that I've seen in Boris Vallejo paintings
but stealing all my best stuff.

Black kids keep stealing my Trapper Keeper.
Black kids keep stealing my birthright.

Did I get national recognition as a poetic prodigy? No, I did not. I got eight weeks of counselling, basically consisting of, "Look, people have lived happy lives without Trapper Keepers, haven't they?"

I'm sure some have. But I haven't. I'm sitting here alone and miserable at 11:30 typing on a fucking blog.

Posted by: Ace at 07:24 PM | Comments (72)
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Clothes by Eddie Bauer. Make-up by Jame Gumb.

You shouldn't wear so much make-up, Al. It makes you look like a whore.

Thanks to Allah.

Posted by: Ace at 07:03 PM | Comments (94)
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Good stuff, good stuff.

Posted by: Ace at 05:34 PM | Comments (10)
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This would have been disasterous had it not been stopped:

The interior minister said Tuesday authorities had foiled an al-Qaida plot that would have put hundreds of its men at critical guard posts around Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the U.S. and other foreign embassies as well as the Iraqi government.

A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 al-Qaida fighters were actually recruited to storm the U.S. and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, the official said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, in an interview with The Associated Press, said the 421 al-Qaida recruits were one bureaucrat's signature away from acceptance into an Iraqi army battalion whose job is to control the gates and main squares in the Green Zone. The plot was discovered three weeks ago.

"You can imagine what could happen to a minister or an ambassador while passing through these gates when those terrorists are there," Jabr said in the interview conducted at his office inside the Green Zone -- a 2-square-mile hunk of prime real estate on the west bank of the Tigris River. The area is a maze of concrete blast walls, concertina wire and checkpoints.

As Bush and others say: They only have to get lucky once. We have to get lucky every single day.

Thanks to dawnsblood.

Posted by: Ace at 05:27 PM | Comments (7)
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The Bush advisor accused of department-store fraud?

Turns out he has an identical twin brother that even family members have trouble telling from him.

And reportedly Claude has had to bail him out before.

Could be. Stranger things have happened.

Actually, shit has been weird now for a while, hasn't it?

Posted by: Ace at 05:22 PM | Comments (22)
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Very cool:

Nanotechnology has restored the sight of blind rodents, a new study shows.

Scientists mimicked the effect of a traumatic brain injury by severing the optical nerve tract in hamsters, causing the animals to lose vision.

After injecting the hamsters with a solution containing nanoparticles, the nerves re-grew and sight returned.

Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team hopes this technique could be used in future reconstructive brain surgery.

...

The researchers injected the blind hamsters at the site of their injury with a solution containing synthetically made peptides - miniscule molecules measuring just five nanometres long.

Once inside the hamster's brain, the peptides spontaneously arranged into a scaffold-like criss-cross of nanofibres, which bridged the gap between the severed nerves.

The scientists discovered that brain tissue in the hamsters knitted together across the molecular scaffold, while also preventing scar tissue from forming.

This is big. There really can't be that much of a difference in the way hamster's nerves work and the way humans' work.

Thanks to Old Coot, who just sent me the story with the tip, "Hey, check it out! They're cutting into hamsters' brains! Like Planet of the Apes, but with hamsters! It's HILARIOUS, man!!!"

I think he missed the main point of the story, but it's a good tip anyway.

Posted by: Ace at 02:08 PM | Comments (19)
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Pretty well choreographed.

If these guys can put together a good action scene, why can't a professional director like Chris "My Batman Doesn't Need to Kick Ass" Nolan?

Thanks to Xoxotl.

Posted by: Ace at 01:59 PM | Comments (19)
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So absurd:

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN author ANNIE PROULX has slated the Academy Awards for giving the Best Picture Oscar to CRASH at this year's (06) presentation ceremony. In an essay published by British newspaper The Guardian, Proulx describes voters as "out of touch" and "segregated" from current issues...

Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver."

I've got news for you, sweetheart. While there are still gay issues out there, I don't think that grown men feel the same need to live in the closet and marry women they way they did in your film (which seems to take place in the early seventies).

You, too, are addressing old issues. Maybe not as old as runaway slaves, but twenty years in the past.

Posted by: Ace at 12:56 PM | Comments (41)
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