Unless, I guess, if you pay for a private session.

Contessa Brewer, who has been a fixture on MSNBC since 2003, will no longer be an anchor on the network, TVNewser has learned.

For the last year-and-a-half Brewer has anchored the NoonET hour on MSNBC as well as hosting the weekend documentary series “Caught on Camera.” Her final daily newscast is tomorrow but she will continue to host “Caught” and work on other projects for NBC News and MSNBC.

She is one of the dumbest, most blatantly biased gutterscrunts on MSNBC; she's basically Ed Schultz with a smaller rack.

She will be missed.

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Posted by: Ace at 02:29 PM | Comments (152)
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Interesting.

Ingraham asked Perry: "Do you think our trade policies have been working for the American family vis-a-vis China or other many of the other countries that have been growing incredibly fast right now?"

"I don't think our trade policies have been working for years, frankly, from the standpoint of being in the best interest of our families," Perry replied. "Do we need to trade? Absolutely. Am I a free trader? Yes. But I'm a fair trader. Just because we pass a free trade agreement with a country doesn't mean we need to put ourselves at a competitive disadvantage to make their diplomatic people smile at us. I mean we need to be tough traders. But Im telling you, we can't be tough traders, we can't be [a] foreign policy impactful country until we get this economy" turned around.

His qualification of "free, but fair, trade" signals him as not being on board with the free-traders' strong-form position, which, if I understand this right, it doesn't matter if our trading partners resort to protectionism, because that hurts them, while we continue to benefit.

The Republican Party has largely been in the strong-form free trade camp for decades. The party is by no means actually united on that, but enough of the party's leaders support strong-form free trade to make that the party's dominant position.

But is it a populist, or popular, position? Probably not. Or at least it's not so wildly popular, even within the conservative movement, that it should have a place of unquestioned dominance in conservative thought.

I'm skeptical (at least I am unconvinced) of the strong-form free-trade doctrine, so this doesn't faze me. But the free-trade league in the GOP might be worried by a protectionist signal.

No Big Deal? Ramesh Ponuru points out that Romney says the same kind of general thing, and John McCormack adds so did Tim Pawlenty.

So maybe this isn't much of a break after all.

Posted by: Ace at 01:48 PM | Comments (158)
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As mentioned earlier, Bill Keller thinks it is good and wise and just to press "candidates" for President closely on religious matters, asking exactly what beliefs they may or may not hold.

He means Republican candidates, of course, but there's no reason to be so stingy with his general principle.

Barack Obama, disciple of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, is a candidate for President too.

Verum Serum has 20 questions for Obama.

Here are some of the trap-piest-- but when Keller speaks of questioning Republican candidates about religion, he's talking about trap questions and wedge questions. Things that will alienate some voters.

Sauce for the goose.

Do you believe the God of the Christian Bible is the same as the God of the Koran? Does this view influence your foreign policy?

Do you believe in hell and if so who is damned? Do you believe in heaven and if so what are the qualifications for entry? Do either of these views influence your interaction with people and or foreign leaders?

Do you believe, as some liberals churchmen do (including some youÂ’ve consulted with), that socialism is the system most compatible with the Gospels? Does this influence your public policy and if so how?

Are the stories in Genesis (the Garden of Eden, the Flood, etc.) just stories, actual histories or something else? How does this influence your faith in the modern world?

When was the last time you read the New Testament and what did you take from it?

Do you believe Jesus was God? Do you believe Mohammed was a prophet of God?

Do you believe Christ will return to earth in the future?

Is there anything in the Bible that you disagree with? What is it and why?

How do you see your faith and the faith of Christians around the world benefiting humanity?

Why donÂ’t you go to church very often?

Add to that: What did you find so appealing and comforting about the preachings of the Reverent Jeremiah Wright?

No, seriously. If we're going to ask "candidates" some questions, lets ask "candidates" some fucking questions.

Posted by: Ace at 01:11 PM | Comments (160)
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They think he and some of his sons have taken refuge in an apartment complex. They're shooting it out with regime loyalists.

Posted by: Ace at 12:58 PM | Comments (44)
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Hi, Morons. I'm tmi3rd, and I'm sitting at the Moron Central Weather Desk, which is a nice way of saying that I'm done with class for the day and sitting at the table doing this because 1) I don't feel like working on physics right now and 2) we have a decent-strength hurricane bearing down on the Eastern Seaboard.

This is going to be a long post, so let me put the big bullet points up above the fold and we'll take it from there:

1) Don't panic. If you're anywhere from the Outer Banks of North Carolina up the east coast all the way to Maine (and the Canadian Maritimes, for that matter), you need to be paying attention to this storm.

2) You need to be thinking about somewhere else you can go if you're within 10 miles of the coast. That is necessarily a New Orleans-centric way of looking at things, but the bottom line is that if you're 10 miles inland, that's far enough inland that the storm surge would have a hard time getting to you. Thus, if you're in NYC or Boston, this definitely means you... but the same if you're in Philadelphia, anywhere along the Jersey Shore, et cetera.

More below the fold... more...

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:06 PM | Comments (321)
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His parents were in the US as legal residents, and he was born here, but the Birthers are claiming that the bullshit they made up with respect to Barack Obama -- that natural born citizen means, of course, born of two American citizen parents -- should also apply with equal stupidity to Marco Rubio, lest their stupidities be exposed as inconsistently applied.

This supposedly is some people's claim about what the "Constitution" (I use the quotes deliberately) means, right?

And they say "Obviously, it must mean born of two citizen parents," right? (Actually, in the strong form, the Birthers even claim "natural born citizen" means "born of two parents who are each themselves also natural born citizens").

I have a question for these "Constitutional" scholars.

Most of the time they say they plain text of the "Constitution" should carry.

Okay.

Um, from where in the Consitution do you get that idea that "natural born citizen" is really supposed to mean "second generation citizen" or "natural born citizen in turn born of two natural born citizens"?

If they meant to say "second generation American citizen," why did they not use those words? Now I do not know if the idiomatic "second generation" existed as a phrase in the 1780s, but there are many different ways to communicate that idea.

Instead they used three words -- "Natural born citizen," which seems to imply a citizen whose citizenship is by birth and not by legal operation or the naturalization But I'm reliably informed that when they used these words they really meant "second generation citizen" or "born of two natural born citizen parents," and yet apparently didn't feel like writing in plain English and so made a muddle of things.

Is that about right?

Some national news media are declaring that U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio is a natural-born citizen and thus eligible for the presidency or vice presidency, even though Rubio's constitutional eligibility remains unclear and the popular Florida Republican has himself downplayed any interest in running on a White House ticket.

In a Daily Caller piece today titled "Coming soon: Rubio 'birthers,'" journalist Matt Lewis warns, "There is already a movement afoot (led by some on the fringe) to disqualify him from serving as president (which would presumably disqualify him from serving as vice president). That's right – some are arguing that Rubio is not eligible because he is not a 'natural-born citizen.'"

Lewis explains the logic by citing a May 22 WND report examining the issue, which noted, "While the Constitution does not define 'natural-born citizen,' there is strong evidence that the Founding Fathers understood it to mean someone born of two American citizens."

"Born of two American citizens" is easily enough to write out. It's pithy. Unambiguous.

And yet they didn't write that.

Oh well, maybe they were just fucking dummies or something.

Clarifying Quotation:

Few bloggers have been bigger pussies on the issue than you Ace. What did 'natural born citizen' mean to the framers, tough guy? You sound like Pelosi when she was questioned on the constitutionality of Obamacare.

What the Rubio pushers like you have in common with the Chris Matthews set is worship of the brown/black because you are not a believing Christian. You replaced one religion with another.

Posted by: ccruse456

I'm very comfortable being in opposition to you, ccruse.

I would think less of myself if I found myself to be on your side.

Posted by: Ace at 11:43 AM | Comments (351)
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Finally!

Well, he doesn't say that exactly. He just drones on about how the media must be tougher about religion with Mssrs Romney and Perry and Mrs. Bachmann.

Careful, dude. You may not like how this one turns out.

Posted by: Ace at 10:32 AM | Comments (277)
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You know Emma Stone, right? She's the cute redhead 20something who has been in pretty much 10% of all movies made in the past 5 years, starting with SuperBad.

What I really like about her is that she took all of the parts that would have gone to Lindsey Lohan.

I like that. Think you're hot shit? No, we've got someone else.

Anyway, Jim Carrey proposes to her in the below video, which may be meant to be funny, but I think he's kidding on the square (joking, but not joking).

He's proposed to virtually everyone else, anyway.

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Posted by: Ace at 10:12 AM | Comments (97)
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Advertisers to use facial recognition technology to tailor commercial pitches. So, when you walk up to, say, a newsstand, it recognizes your face and cross-references your buying habits. Then it starts hawking K-Y Jelly to you and Val-U-Rite vodka. Right in front of your new girlfriend.

It seems to know you're a woman in your late 20s and, in fact, it does. When you looked at the display, it scanned your facial features and tailored its messages to you.

Once the stuff of science fiction and high-tech crime fighting, facial recognition technology has become one of the newest tools in marketing, even though privacy concerns abound.

. . .

The commercial applications of facial recognition are in contrast to those being used by law enforcement to identify specific individuals. Companies, at least at this point, mostly just want to pinpoint a demographic based on age and gender to tailor their ads.

But even this facial recognition-lite alarms privacy advocates, given that it could greatly popularize and expand use of the technology.

Intel Corp., which makes such software, said it's widely adaptable.

"You can put this technology into kiosks, vending machines, digital signs," said Christopher O'Malley, director of retail marketing for Intel's embedded and communications group. "It's going to become a much more common thing in the next few years."

You know that penis enlargement medical clinic website you visited last year? Uh-huh. You'll be hearing from them again soon. Next time you buy a Mountain Dew at the local 7-11.

At the pace this technology is advancing, we need a comprehensive privacy statute, one that addresses some of the legal fictions that have crept into Fourth Amendment jurisprudence regarding reasonable expectation of privacy. One should not have to feel creeped out simply because they went to the store to buy some Ding Dongs.

Follow me on Twitter.

Dave Chappelle asks: What if targeted advertising actually hit you in meatspace? The future is here, Dave. The future is here. (Content warning: language.)

Posted by: rdbrewer at 10:01 AM | Comments (90)
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It feels like 2005 because there is, or at least was, a full-on blog-war.

I didn't cover this because I really wanted it to go nowhere, but it did not go nowhere, it went wide. So.

Jamie Radtke is a Tea Party candidate challenging George Allen for the Republican nomination for Senate in Virginia. She is having trouble getting endorsements and traction, partly because George Allen has a lot of friends in influential places. Plus, I think it's just expected he will prevail in the primary so why rock the boat?, goes the thinking in the pragmatist/establishment camp.

Dan Riehl and RedState had been knocking heads over another matter. (A RedState contributor faulted Michelle Malkin for "leaving her integrity and intellect at the door" in her anti-vaccine activism -- and I gotta tell you, I do not get the anti-vaccine stuff and never ever will -- and Dan began railing on them for blog on blog violence.

Erick Erickson endorsed Radtke, but later wrote an email to her explaining he would have to limit his advocacy on her behalf:

Erickson told Allen’s challenger, Jamie Radtke, that he had to moderate his support for her because “my bosses are huge Allen friends,” according to an email he sent earlier this month, which her campaign manager forwarded to POLITICO.

Well, that email got leaked to Politico. So there is now a major fight going on between Riehl (accused of helping the story along), RedState, and Radtke.

I'm avoiding the ugly accusations because honestly I'd like this all to be worked out behind the scenes.

Nope, There's More: So, Erick posted reviews of Radtke's speech at the RedState Gathering, in which some people claimed she must have been drunk.

Radtke called that "libelous" and a lawyer sent a letter demanding a retraction (since provided, mostly).

But now a statement is issued:

Erick’s blog goes beyond the pale,” Radtke stated. “He crossed the line by publishing complete falsehoods. Now, it is his responsibility to admit he did wrong, set the record straight and apologize – and that is what I am asking Erick to do.

“This kind of scurrilous behavior and treatment has been repeatedly carried out on tea party leaders and conservative candidates who dare challenge the good ‘ole boy Washington Establishment. This attempt by the Washington Establishment to destroy the tea party and their candidates must stop. Enough is enough.

Well who knows, maybe this can help Radtke. There is an old staying, if you want to draw a crowd, pick a fight.

Posted by: Ace at 09:12 AM | Comments (402)
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