Indeed they did. The "porn" on Kozinski's website was not stroke-material -- what most of us think as porn -- but funny (well, intended to be funny) pictures and videos using dirty material. Quite frankly, it's the sort of stuff we all get in our email box every single day, often from coworkers or even parents.

The LAT consistently misrepresented the material as not just bawdy or inappropriate but as actual hardcore porn.

For crying out loud, one of the pics identified by the LAT as a shot of a "woman's crotch" is the famous and funny "Mooseknuckle-- Camel Toe's Ugly Sister" picture/photoshop.

Yeah, the chick painted as a cow was kinda halfway hot and all, but overall the images and videos were meant to be funny, not to be beaten off to.

The judge's wife wrote to Patterico about this, and Patterico's prior collecting up of the images demonstrates the LAT deliberately lied about what exactly had been found on Kozinski's "website."

And it gets a little worse:

While I’m on the topic of responsible journalism, it has recently come to light that the LA Times learned about this material months ago, and sat on it until it would do the maximum damage. Selecting the jury was a very grueling undertaking. Over 150 potential jurors were screened for hour after painful hour on Monday and Tuesday. Scores of men and women took the trip into the jury box, only to leave soon thereafter because they confessed themselves unable to view the materials. A number of others disclosed embarrassing facts about themselves and their families in order to explain why they could not sit on this jury. It was a difficult and painful process for just about everyone who was called into the jury box. Finally, after considering 109 members of the panel, a jury was selected and sworn at the end of the day on Tuesday. And Glover was present in court while all this was going on, biding his time. Only on Wednesday, after the jury had started to hear the case – and jeopardy had attached – did the LA Times choose to “break” its story.

Sitting on a story only to "break" it when Kozinski is sitting on an obscenity case, in order to maximize embarrassment, fallout, and impact?

This isn't news, it's a political hit.

Posted by: Ace at 09:30 AM | Comments (41)
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(related story in the sidebar)

From AP, via CNN comes the sad tale of 500 hundred or so Taliban “fighters” who’ve decided to take up residence in several fishing villages near Kandahar (which is an island just off the coast of Greenland, morons…look it up.) where it’s presumed they’ll resume their former roles as peaceful, yet gruff, manly lobster hunters.

”Mohammad Farooq, the government leader in the Arghandab district of Kandahar province, said around 500 Taliban fighters moved into his district. Arghandab lies just north of Kandahar city -- the Taliban's former stronghold.”

“The push into Arghandab comes three days after a Taliban attack on Kandahar's prison freed hundreds of fighters.”

Sadly, it’s assumed that most of these “fighters,” unable to adjust to the outside world, will eventually die of broken hearts or by the hand of superior firepower, but mostly from broken hearts (pierced by bullets and shrapnel)

Posted by: Open Blog at 09:22 AM | Comments (7)
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You don't hear too much talk about the Bakken field from democrats these days. I wonder why? Could it be because of this:

...Best of all, the Bakken could be huge. The Geological Survey's Leigh Price, a Denver geochemist who died of a heart attack in 2000, estimated that the Bakken might hold 413 billion barrels. If so, it would dwarf Saudi Arabia's Ghawar, the world's biggest field, which has produced about 55 billion barrels.

The challenge is getting the oil out. Bakken crude is locked 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) underground in a layer of dolomite, a dense mineral that doesn't surrender oil the way more porous limestone does. The dolomite band is narrow, too, averaging just 22 feet (7 meters) in North Dakota.

The USGS said in April that the Bakken holds as much as 4.3 billion barrels that can be recovered using today's engineering techniques. That's a fraction of the oil that Price said should be there, but it's still the largest accumulation of crude in the 48 contiguous U.S. states...

A U.S. Geological Survey assessment, released April 10, shows a 25-fold increase in the amount of oil that can be recovered compared to the agency's 1995 estimate of 151 million barrels of oil...

...The Bakken Formation estimate is larger than all other current USGS oil assessments of the lower 48 states and is the largest "continuous" oil accumulation ever assessed by the USGS...

more...

Posted by: Purple Avenger at 09:11 AM | Comments (57)
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There was a small bounce after he thrilled Chris Matthews' legs still further after securing the Democratic nomination, but now that's all but dissipated.

The MSM's obvious excitement over Obama is shared by the American public, but only around 42-45% of it. No matter how much the MSM wants to present Obama as a unifying figure who can and should garner 85% of the popular vote, the fact is he couldn't even manage a majority of the vote in the Democratic primary.

Posted by: Ace at 09:07 AM | Comments (15)
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No, we aren't talking about what she terms her best feature.

Apparently she doesnÂ’t like her butt.

"Kate has a terrible self-image," an on-set source told the Mail. "She thinks she is fat and she is always complaining how certain outfits make her bottom look big. Of course, the reality is that she has the most amazing body.

"The script called for her character to be filmed nude in a shower, focusing in on her bottom and thighs. Kate insisted on a double being hired. She was quite open on the set about not liking her body and said she particularly loathed her bottom and was not comfortable baring it."

I donÂ’t know about you but it looks just fine to me.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:22 AM | Comments (50)
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When pressed on his lack of experience, Obama often cites his years as a ‘community organizer’ as part of his resume (such as it is). Like most other things about Obama the press has taken that at face value. No one seems to have bothered to follow up and see what it actually means and what, if anything, he accomplished in that oddly titled job.

Well, Byron York at National Review took a look and believe it or not, it doesnÂ’t seem Obama accomplished much at all.

His greatest hits seem to have been a successful effort to convince the city of Chicago to locate a jobs placement office on the far South Side and his part in a drive to push the city to clean asbestos out of a housing project in the same area.

… Obama, not long out of college, didn't have much experience to qualify him to be an organizer. But he was black — a threshold qualification for this particular job — and he seemed able almost to work magic on those he encountered. "He didn't have experience," Augustine-Herron told me, "but he had a sensitivity that allowed us to believe that he could do that job."

Gee, this all sounds vaguely familiar. ItÂ’s one thing to take a chance on a smooth talking but inexperienced young guy to be a community organizer, itÂ’s quite another to elect someone President with a resume as thin as ObamaÂ’s.

Posted by: DrewM at 07:31 AM | Comments (37)
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With this on the horizon, Canada is going to be suffering more than just a lack of live strippers.

I know we've discussed this before here. We are a "very smart military blog" after all, and if there's one thing the military needs, it's high morale.

But you know what? Many civilians need a morale boost as well, and, as the man says:

There are many millions of people in the world who have nobody. They might be shy or they might have some psychological hang-ups or psycho-sexual hang-ups, they might have personality problems, they might be ugly ..."

People like, well, like your average Ace O' Spades moron. For those of you suffering from an unfair burden of ugliness, a foul smell, insignificant naughty bits, an overabundance of humps, or a propensity to post about turtles, rest easy tonight.

And try to rest easy for the next five years of nights, give or take. You salvation is coming, and it will be wicked awesome:

Robots as sex toys should already be on the market within five years, predicted Levy, "a sort of an upgrade of the sex dolls on sale now".

Your fem (or men)-bot fetish will be the size and shape you desire, programmed with the personality and voice you have always dreamed your lover would have. Indeed:

"These would have electronic speech and sensors that make them utter "nice sounds" when a human caresses their "erogenous zones".

Now, don't get too worried about that last part. As with those Star Wars model kits most of you spend endless hours assembling, instructions will be included with definitions of what exactly an "erogenous zone" is, and how to go about eliciting the most favorable response from your metal booty-call.

Furthermore, the plasticine pimps that will sell these latex lovers will understand basic market forces.

A robot could conceivably be programmed with a will of its own and the ability to reject his human partner ... but that would be a very difficult robot to sell.

Amen, brother. A - frick'n - men. The people buying these are going to be fragile enough as it is.

The only problem I have is that of all the examples I've seen in film, or read of in books, the one that never fails to turn my crank would probably put me on the outs with polite society:

more...

Posted by: Open Blog at 07:47 PM | Comments (65)
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Is this a great state country or what?

Unlike the older sex shops, which are dark and dingy, the Babeland store has upbeat music, well-dressed saleswomen and infant changing tables -- marketing itself as a fun place for couples to shop. It's part of a growing trend that has been spreading from Louisville to Los Angeles in an attempt to take take the sleeze [sic] out of this part of the sex industry.

When asked for her opinion on the store’s location, Lisa — who declined to give her last name— didn’t know the store’s name or what it sold, but deposited her young son on the front stoop so she could take a quick peek inside. She declared it “tastefully done” when she came back out.

“I think the ladies are going to be pretty excited about it, and I’m sure there are some gentlemen who will be as well,” said Zukerman. [Heh.]

Amanda Asrelsky, an employee of the neighboring maternity-wear store Bump, said sex is a natural thing that should be fun. [Oh, it's that kind of neighborhood. Why didn't you just say so?]

Hat tip to Kevin, who said tongue-in-cheek, I think: "Sweet Jeepers! We Really Are Morally Bankrupt Aren't We?"

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 06:18 PM | Comments (20)
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Glenn Reynolds writes:

ENVIRONMENTAL GOOD NEWS: Leatherback turtles return to Texas. "For the first time since the 1930’s, federal biologists confirmed that a leatherback sea turtle has nested on a Texas beach, at the Padre Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi. . . . The giant, ancient, endangered turtles, some the size of a Smart Car, have until now only been known to nest in four spots in the United States – with about three dozen females a year laying eggs on beaches along the east coast of Florida and slightly larger nesting populations in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands."

But are they good to eat?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 04:15 PM | Comments (50)
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Philadelphia Eagles Cheerleaders show you beach-going ladies how to shape up your butts for bikini season.

If ever there was an urgent public service announcement it would be this one.

Note to Excitable Andi: These are "power glutes". Accept no substitute.

Posted by: Jack M. at 01:48 PM | Comments (26)
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