James Lileks, if you didn't know, was stripped of his job as columnist at the Minneapolis (Red) Star-Tribune and offered the lesser position of acting as a straight news reporter covering the fascinating Minneapolis scene. In other words, the newspaper chose to take away his national status -- he was of course frequently linked to nationwide -- and make him all but unread.

This piece at ABCNews (of all places) by Michael S. Malone discusses this.

The most heated topic in the blogosphere this week was the announcement by James Lileks, one of the world's most popular bloggers, that his longtime employer, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, was taking away his print column and putting him back on the reporting beat.

This announcement, which first appeared late Monday night in Lileks' column, initially drew shocked disbelief, then an explosion of anger — mostly in the form of letters to Lileks in support (including one from me) and to the Star-Tribune in righteous fury. On his radio show, Hugh Hewitt devoted a couple hours of precious airtime to the news.

Such an outpouring seemed to astonish even Lileks, whose blog about his daily life, typically featuring his dog, Jasper, and daughter "Gnat," have become staples of many readers' daily lives. Hewitt, I think accurately, compared it to the New Yorker asking E.B. White to switch to restaurant reviews, the L.A. Times transferring Jim Murray to the county government beat, or -- in an analogy especially appreciated by this longtime Northern Californian -- to the San Francisco Chronicle asking the late Herb Caen to give up his column and cover the police blotter. Even Dave Barry waded in to shake his head at the sheer stupidity of newspapers these days.

One of the reasons for this intense reaction is that for most of us in the rest of the world, the only thing we know about Minneapolis these days, and certainly about the Star-Tribune, is what we read in Lileks.com. In other words, James Lileks is far bigger than the newspaper that employs him, is its single most effective bastion against falling subscription revenues, and is its most powerful marketing and promotion tool.

To rip that platform out from underneath its single most important asset now makes the "Strib" the poster child for the astonishingly stupid and suicidal decisions made by newspapers in the 21st century.

Malone calls this a case of stupidity. I disagree. The Red Star isn't being stupid; it's being egotistical. Malone views Lileks' prominence and national reach as a boon for the paper. As would most reasonable people.

But the paper obviously doesn't view it as a boon. They view it as a chastisement and an embarrassment. A single writer has more readers and national influence than an entire organization of several hundred employees and several million dollars of budget. The fact that the Red Star's actual star is a Red Stater further humiliates them.

Economists often wonder why, given the fact of liberal media bias, more media companies don't make a play for the great underserved conservative-leaning market and skew to the right instead. Or, even, to the middle. It makes perfect sense if all you're talking about is money. But the fact is people don't get into news to make a lot of money; there are nonpecuniary compensations -- "doing good," "serving the public," "advocating for change," "comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable" -- that are a major part of the compensation package in a media job.

CBS just had its worst week of news ratings in "many years" (so many, in fact, the reporter here is unable to probe back far enough to determine the magnintude of Katie Couric's dubious record). It might make sense to replace her with a more centrist, or even right leaning, anchor -- let NBC and ABC fight it out for the one-third of the country that is liberal; CBS will have no broadcast competition for the half of the country that is conservative or at least conservative-leaning.

It makes money sense. It makes business sense. It makes market sense. But CBS will never do it, because the media is so overwhelmingly liberal it's doubtful that CBS could actually hire the talent needed to field a full network news organization should it make a break to the right. The resignations and the outright refusals to tender job applications would turn the division into a ghost-town. The liberal media types just couldn't live with themselves if they were working for "The Enemy."

So, Lileks was the Red Star's most famous, most quoted, most widely read writer. So what? Malone notes this as if that's a good thing. It's not, at least not from the Red Star's perspective. They just can't live with themselves for granting such a degenerate font of evil to speak from their platform.

Of course, they are in fact ultimately stupid, as they'll soon realize. They think that they're somehow denying Lileks his national reach just by taking away the imprimature of the scary-important, scary-influential Star Tribune gig. As if it was the Star-Tribune's seal of approval that made him readable.

Their sense of self-worth depends on believing this -- they're the ones that should be nationally read, quoted all over the world. They, after all, are the straight media types with the right pedigree and the (politically) correct political views. Therefore they must believe that they can take down Lileks just by denying him the credibility and prominence they were providing him.

They're about to be disappointed again. They weren't providing him any prominence nor credibility; his own writing was. All they were providing him with was a paycheck -- a fungible thing that will soon be coming to him from someone else.

They're about to find out that Lileks never needed them, but that they themselves did need him.

They probably suspect that, worry about that -- but their egos can't let them truly accept it. Denial comes first. And last, and always, for these people.

The Red Star will go back to being an unread rag, scarcely read even in Minnesota. But in their hearts they'll know they did the right thing, and are happier being more pure and more ignored.

They just couldn't live with themselves for thinking they were contributing to thep popularity of Lileks. The hell of it is, of course, they never did contribute to his popularity, so their bloated egos and their precious consciences could have rested easily regarding that point.

Related: The Red Star's retiring deputy editorial page editor says that the paper's token-ish hiring of conservative columnists, due to the paper's outlandishly kneejerk liberal company line hurting profitability, made him "hold his nose" in disgust.

Again: It's better to do what's "right" than do what it takes to get people to buy newspapers, or even read newspapers, for that matter.

A greatest hit from "laughinstock liberal" Boyd recounted fondly from Powerline, which, I think, consists of the last three people in America reading this piece of shit.

Posted by: Ace at 05:38 PM | Comments (68)
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A typically thorough run-down from Michelle, including Blair's March, 2006 speech "Why We Fight On."

British bloggers are happy to see him go.

Bonus: Malkin and EFF are joining to sue Akon's copyright holder for using the copyright laws to selectively squelch criticism.

It's about time. YouTube, being in the business of IP piracy and copyright violation, is beholden to those whose rights it is constantly infringing to ask "How high?" when they say jump. (Of course, YouTube seems inclined to remove a lot of this material of its own volition, repeatedly taking down videos that contain not a nanosecond of copyrighted material but which offend leftist sensibilities...)

But fair use remains the law. And Malkin is permitted to make fair use of copyrighted material even (especially) when criticizing someone. Copyright holders cannot seek to undo the law of fair use by only claiming a "copyright violation" for a fair-use that happens to criticize them, especially when they have given de facto permission to play entire songs and videos on YouTube.

Correction: June 27, not May.

Posted by: Ace at 04:12 PM | Comments (21)
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If this is true, if it can be substantiated, this is enormous.

Thanks to Sebelius' and Dean's craven conspiracy, 10,000 human lives were lost, as Barack Obama tells us.

fter Brownback told her that he was very disappointed in her, She pleaded “You know me Sam, I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t have to.” She declared “Howard (Dean) called me around 5 o’clock (in the morning) and told me not to ask The White House for any help or make any statements until I heard back. Dick (Durban?) called me an hour or 2 later and that’s when he told me we needed to use this ‘n’ said to talk about the Guard all bein’ at war.”

She then explained the thinking; “Speaker and Harry got so much heat on them from both sides over this damn war, ‘n’ they need to get the press on somethin’ else. I didn’t think it was right to use it like this either, but I didn’t see’s I had much choice in this climate, Sam.”

Brownback is neither confirming nor denying the story. Possibly because he's the original source, but doesn't want to be fingered as the source. He may address it, partly, this weekend.

This is pretty damn big if true.

Posted by: Ace at 03:26 PM | Comments (70)
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Big deal. On any day of the week I have multiple celebrities, high government officials, and beloved movie characters posting here.

Still, I guess this is AICN's idea of a coup.

He posts as "Walter B" for some reason. It's hard to know for sure if it's really Willis, but Knowles did say he personally got a phone call from him to protest the complaints about LFODH's PG-13 rating. So, if this is an imposter, presumably Knowles could have found that out.

When someone knocks him on his spelling, he says "Proofreading is for pussies." Words I live by myself.

He writes this:

May 7th, 2007
09:34:24 PM
The Mythology of Die Hard, for me consists of the following-

1. an ordinary guy confronted with an extraordinary circumstances

2. MaClane loves his Family, his Country, and despises anyone who preys on people who cannot defend themselves, and has a severe distaste for Authority.

3.You just can't stop MaClane

4. A story that is riveting from beginning to end.

5. Finally, the weiredness of seeing a set of films whose timeline covers 22 years.

Once the term "the Mythology of Die Hard started getting used, everyone got it, almost immediately. We never thought we were shooting a movie, not a rating.

i have said it elsewhere on this Thread, but except for the Fuck quotient, this Film is as badass as the First, and way tougher than 2 or 3, and the hardcore heart of the Film's Mythology has not been compromised one bit, regardless of the outrage of those who haven't seen it yet. thanks WB

I'm not sure whether the fact this poster can't bother to spell the name of Willis' most famous and most frequently played character is 1) proof it's not Bruce Willis or 2) proof it probably is Bruce Willis.

After all, proofreading is for pussies.

In Other Hollywood News... It's Knockers-Day over at the Superficial.

Here's the trailer for the third Pirate movie, which you've probably already seen.

Looks nice. But the first film was overplotted to the point of boredom in the end-bits -- and all to set up the question as to whether Jack would turn out to be a hero or a villain; honestly, was anyone really worried he'd kill Bloom or Knightley? -- and then the second movie was nothing but overplotting and overstuffing with bustle and incident.

I'm hoping they got all the plot out of the way in the disappointing (and aclimactic -- the film had no real ending, it just stopped) second installment, and now we can enjoy a simpler plot and focus on the characters and swashbuckling.

Posted by: Ace at 03:08 PM | Comments (27)
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See, the undercover man made suggestions about carrying out the attack.

Entrapment is defined, if memory serves, as strong persuasion by a state actor to commit a crime which induces the arrestee to commit a crime he would not have committed but for the persuasion. In other words, it's not just asking someone "Spleef?" or "Howsabout we blow up some Americans?" For entrapment to fly, you have to convince a jury that the persuasion was of such strength that the only reason for the crime was the persuasion itself.

Given that these guys were already shooting guns and screaming jihadist slogans and planning attacks on Americans, I really don't think the "entrapment" argument is even close to applicable. They were already planning this; the undercover guy just got them to say so on tape.

It's nice to see the AP flack so ignorantly on the terrorists' behalf, though, suggesting that entrapment is a valid defense here, but probably won't work only because the nation has jettisoned any respect for civil liberties after 9/11.

Posted by: Ace at 01:56 PM | Comments (23)
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I've spent so much time on the war thing I didn't notice my email box was o'erfilling with great stuff. I'll dispense with the headline/commentary/snark format and just dump a whole lot of links here quickly. more...

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (49)
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On one hand, it's a confession of a sin which, as she says, most have been guilty of at one time or another. So it is honesty, which can't be faulted.

One can fault the suggestion that it's something kids are permitted to do, and should only be expected to drive while sober after reaching the legal drinking age:

"It doesn't make it the right thing to do, and hopefully as you get to be an adult..."

Not really the most outrageous thing someone could say, mitigated by some honest realism on the point, and yet I suspect that most other folks -- especially those on the right -- would get a lot more heat than she'll get for expressing such a cavalier attitude towards drunk driving.

I also suspect that for the mentally and emotionally unstable Rosie, with her "self-destructive" personality type as Trump notes (right after noticing her "obese loser slob" personality type), "driving drunk" means something different than it does for most of us.

Most of us consider driving drunk to be driving impaired. I think she means driving shit-faced and barely able to stand.

"I remember being 21 years old coming home from gigs, totally not in any capacity to drive."

Yup. There it is. In the interests of disclosure, I remember driving in that sort of state exactly once. I was pulled over for drunk driving.

The weird thing is I passed the field sobriety test -- partly because for some reason I was suddenly able to recite the alphabet backwards with perfect fluency.

Posted by: Ace at 12:55 PM | Comments (26)
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You know what's hysterical?

Andrew Sullivan mentioned the right's suspicions about YouTube's decidedly anti-American, jihadist-friendly policies and called them lunatic. Proving that he simply doesn't read rightwing blogs anymore -- how could he have missed the well-documented case against YouTube otherwise?

And yet he's a "true conservative" -- a "true conservative," it seems, who only reads (and links) leftwing blogs like Glenn Greenwald.

Sorry, True Conservative. Intellectually and politically, you are what you eat.

Posted by: Ace at 12:38 PM | Comments (15)
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Via Allah "Swetness & Light" Pundit.

Not that much can take the sting off that, but he also links a video report on the Iranian Modesty Police hasseling women showing a Satanic amount of forehead.

And then this: Apparently this scantily dressed whorestrumpet got harrassed by, and then punching, a burka-wearing undercover female cop.

(Are women allowed to be cops in Iran. I dunno, that's what the YouTube description claims. Allah's other link shows similar harpies working with police to berate scandalously-clad gutterscrunts.)

Posted by: Ace at 12:10 PM | Comments (35)
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Thanks to Bart. This is a very, very stupid story and one I'm thrilled to post given the bad news coming from Iraq.

Girls Gone Embarrassed:

Young women embarrassed by their bulging beer bellies stole nearly 1,000 copies of the Framingham State College newspaper to cover up the front-page exposure.

Now administrators and editors want the fat-concerned ladies to pay.

“This is the most stupid reason the paper has been stolen,” said English professor Desmond McCarthy, faculty adviser to The Gatepost.

The April 27 edition of the school paper features seven bare-bellied women in tank tops and low-rise shorts standing on the bleachers during a womenÂ’s lacrosse game.

...

All the goodwill ended when some of the women told campus officials they looked too fat, so they trimmed down the stacks of papers.

One student who admitted to the hoarding returned about 130 copies, McCarthy said.

McCarthy and Megan Turner, The GatepostÂ’s editor-in-chief, said the students responsible for stealing the paper should be required to pay for reprints. Turner said printing 500 copies can cost about $630.

As someone who's both vain and very insecure about my appearance, I can sympathize.

But honestly, if you've got a spare tire, keep it under your shirt.

Bart says a picture showing more gals is here (scroll down).

The funny thing is, only one girl really has a beer belly -- and a smallish one -- and maybe one or two other girls show any noticable fat at all. Not really an embarrassing amount of fat. Just a bit of fun-stuff.

So the newspapers were burned in a bonfire of the hypervanities.

Posted by: Ace at 11:59 AM | Comments (53)
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