Before I mention the joke, I have to mention the template for it.

Jokes have templates. A lot of times you may think someone sounds like he "just made something up," and he's a quick wit. In fact, what he is is someone who knows a lot of joke templates, and just swaps appropriate words in the A Blank and the B Blank, and makes it sound fresh.

But the template itself is old, old, old, and has been used a million times.

And I'm not knocking this, as I do it all the time; anyone who writes jokes does this. I mean, this is what jokes are, you know.

The template the Onion used was this:

"We're all thinking it: [Insert something truly horrible that absolutely no one at all is thinking]"

You see this joke on sitcoms all the time.

CHARACTER A: [Something fantastically horrible]

CHARACTERS B & C: [Upset reaction that anyone would say such a thing]

CHARACTER A (flatly): Well we were all thinking it.

The point of the joke is not the truth of the statement offered, but some kind of unintentional revelation about the speaker of it.

Of course, while the joke relies on the idea of an "unintentional revelation" about the speaker that he he intended to keep silent, in fact it's completely intentional, because the joke is designed for just that effect.

ME: Lindsey Lohan hasn't been bangable since "The Parent Trap." Well, we were all thinking it.

I mean, honestly, if I believed this I wouldn't write it into the Evidentiary Record.

The simple variation of the joke is to change "We were all thinking it" to "Everyone's afraid to say it, but..." They have the same meaning.

So the Onion deployed this joke with regard to a 9-year-old actress...

Everyone else seems afraid to say it, but that Quvenzhané Wallis is kind of a c**t, right? #Oscars2013

—

The Onion (@TheOnion) February 25, 2013

The joke is that precisely no one is thinking that, and this is supposed to be the Onion writer "accidentally" exposing the dark twists of his brain. The target of the joke is the Speaker, not the Subject the Speaker is speaking about.

But he didn't mean it, and anyone who's seen this joke any of the sixty five million times it's been deployed knows he didn't mean it.

The only problem here is that this is a kid, and she might read the joke, and might be upset, even though no offense was actually intended.

And that's a concern, but... I mean, do we literally have to worry about every single person who may read our jokes and patrol them to make sure literally no one is ever hurt by them?

And as far as that little girl: I mean, once you explain the joke to her, does she remain upset?

And what's this girl's parents doing letting her read the Internet unsupervised, or be on the sewage pit Twitter, or read the adult-oriented Onion?

They should be burned with fire until they are dead, dead, dead.

Come on, you know you were all thinking it.

Risk Vs. Reward: Given this joke is in fact a cliche (and currently being way overused, to the point where it could have its own TVTropes category), another objection would be "Does the merit of the joke justify its capacity to offend?"

Well, clearly not, given that The Onion felt the need to apologize.

But that said, that's a purely prudential consideration, a cost-benefit determination, not a matter of morality.

And so no, given that people have a short-trigger when it comes to Jokes About Kids, no, it wasn't worth it. It's really a joke that's now in its last gasp, and the writer thought he could give it some freshness by adding even more Shock Value than usual.

But, in none of the worlds that exist did the guy really mean a cute little girl he never met is really a c-word.

Posted by: Ace at 11:24 AM | Comments (323)
Post contains 655 words, total size 4 kb.

$500,000 gets you special access to the president.

Previously, I suppose, this was just understood; but, in case you were unsure, Obama's making it an explicit cash-money guarantee.

When asked about it, Jay Carney babbles something about the DISCLOSE Act and kinda sorta literally runs from the podium.

Posted by: Ace at 11:06 AM | Comments (122)
Post contains 66 words, total size 1 kb.

Via Hot Air, Baseball Crank defends Ted Cruz by noting is (or was) in fact true that there were more Marxists on the faculty at Harvard Law than Republicans.

He was there. And he can, I assume, count.

I have a more basic, less-fact based objection to Jane Mayer's attempt to demagogue Ted Cruz:

Why is it that Marxists, and Marxists alone, are protected against having their politics noted?

When Todd Akin made his unfortunate comment that the feminine body has a way to "shut that down" in the case of pregnancies by rape, no one said it was "MacCarthyite" to publicize his beliefs. If anyone had said so, they would have been laughed down.

(Actually the left and the media and the Democratic Party went all in on the guilt-by-association technique -- trying to associate Paul Ryan with Todd Akin's beliefs, due to Ryan's alleged cosponsoring of a law with Akin. And still no one said "MacCarthyite.")

And yet if you note that Marxists are indeed Marxists it's supposedly a sort of Hate Crime up with which we must not put.

Who made this odd rule?

Would I be correct in guessing that Marxists themselves created it and Marxists themselves (and their fellow travelers) are the major proponents of it?

Cruz was making a point about the academy's tilt not just towards the Democratic Party but towards Marxism itself. In the academy, left-liberal Democrats are the "conservatives."

Why is there any moral objection to saying something that is true?

The only objection can come from the Marxists themselves, who prefer to work in secret, and the Democrats, who prefer their alliance with the Marxists not be noted, lest it embarrass them politically.

But this has nothing to do with morality or ethics or fair process. The Republican Party would like to not be associated with (for example) Todd Akin's remarks; our preference that we are not associated with embarrassing political beliefs doesn't make it The Iron Rule of the Land that no one can note this.

But Marxists, and the left, and the Democrats, and university professors, and the leftists that control the media, all line up to a man to insist it's Foul Play and Creeping Fascism if you say something True.

So: Who are the fascists again?

Truth is a defense in libel. It ought to also be a defense to the charge of "fascism."

Bean Counting is the Basis of All "Diversity" Programs... Why is it that Ted Cruz is forbidden from counting red beans?

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (127)
Post contains 433 words, total size 3 kb.

Guilty.

I wasn't sure until he played the Race Card. Now I know for certain.

At a Black History Month event held at a Trenton, N.J. church on Sunday, Democratic Senator Bob Menendez blamed conservatives for his ethics scandals, framing them as a racial attack on him because of his Hispanic heritage. “I have felt the sting of discrimination,” he told approximately 300 worshipers, according to the Bergen Record. ”It has never been easy.”

“Now we face anonymous, faceless, nameless individuals from right-wing sources seeking to destroy a lifetime of work,” Menendez said at Shiloh Baptist Church.

At the end he quoted Martin Luther King Jr.'s aphorism "the arc of history tends towards justice" and said he expected he'd get justice himself.

Hopefully.

L to R: Dr. Salomon Melgen, Sen. Bob Mendendez, Richard "The Night Stalker" Ramierez

Posted by: Ace at 09:40 AM | Comments (225)
Post contains 161 words, total size 1 kb.

Harvey Weinstein -- who hired Stephanie Cutter to promote his own film, pushing a fake political angle -- arranged it.

According to Academy president Hawk Koch, the plan came from Weinstein and his daughter, Lily. Koch and Oscar show producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron loved the idea. And when it was pitched to the first lady, Zadan told The Hollywood Reporter that her response was, "Yes, I think it's a great idea. We watch movies all the time at the White House. Let's do it."

So, two weeks ago, Koch and the producers borrowed Disney's jet for a flight to D.C. They told their colleagues, though, that they had to go to New York for the day. "The planning of it was like Argo -- it was a C.I.A. mission, it was so complicated. We didn't even want anyone to know where we were going," Zadan said.

Yes just like Argo, which itself was just like a movie, which it was, as the movie that won Best Picture was also fake.

Going through those historical inaccuracies there -- I didn't mind the fake climax.* Never for one moment when I was watching it did I imagine the plane was actually chased by Iranian police cars on the runway. That was just an eye-roll to me.

I also never bought the other complication -- that they didn't have plane tickets because you can't buy plane tickets without the President's approval.

Wait, what? The big scare at the end is that you might not have plane tickets, because Jimmy Carter didn't approve them? You buy plane tickets for a covert exfiltration day-of? Yeah, did not buy that at all. Just seemed made up for tension. (Turns out the Canadians had, of course, bought the tickets weeks before.)

The operative involved, Tony Mendez, wrote that the airport phase of the operation went "smooth as silk."

I'm more annoyed at other faked bits, like faking what Argo really was (it was the retitled Roger Zelazny book "Lord of Light," it turns out) and making the other Hollywood guy involved -- also a make-up artist -- a producer, in order, I guess, to draw votes from the producer wing of the Academy.

* The Fake Climax nearly announces itself as a Fake Climax when they get into the microbus that will take them to the airport and... the engine won't turn over on the first try.

This is such a hoary cliche I should have realized it was their attempt to cover themselves by signaling, "Okay, from this point on it's all fakery."

I don't know if the first Hollywood Car Won't Start moment was in Double Indemnity, but there's a somewhat interesting story to that-- they made that up minutes before filming it. They thought they needed a little more tension, and so had Fred MacMurray pretend to try to start the car and fail multiple times. (As they were on a tight Murder Schedule in which every minute away was a minute they could be caught, this was a big thing.) They added all the Car Won't Start Engine Failure Noise in post-production.

Groans from the Press: Even the press is a little tired of Les Obama.

When Michelle Obama was introduced by Jack Nicholson most of the reporters in the media room groaned....loudly

Posted by: Ace at 09:06 AM | Comments (206)
Post contains 582 words, total size 4 kb.

A lot of cross promotion between DC, Hollywood for Ugly People, and Hollywood, DC for Dumb People.

Nobody announced her participation in the [Silver Linings Playbook] campaign, and to the casual observer, she just seemed like another Beltway insider who just happened to be moved to frequently declare her love for the movie on Twitter, writing on February 14, “We're a little over a week away from Oscars. Check out the making of Silver Linings Playbook. Love this movie” (and then providing a link to the trailer). Or “Oscar week – who are you routing [sic] for?” with a link to an article about SLP a week later. And for a web extra Q&A for ABC’s This Week, she was asked her favorite film. “We’re in Oscar season so I’m gonna talk about my favorite film this year,” she said. “My favorite is actually Silver Linings Playbook. That it’s so real and identifiable to everybody in life.”

With top rivals Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty both having big political angles that resonated beyond Hollywood, our sources tell us that Cutter was hired to tout SLP not just as a well-made movie, but a culturally relevant and especially politically significant film that was shaping the national conversation about mental health triggered in part by the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.

Vulture also called the Best Picture for Argo a month and a half ago.

1. Hollywood finds itself fascinating.

“I thought it was always going to be Argo,” says one head of marketing at a studio who doesn’t have a financial stake in the outcome, “because it’s a movie that makes Hollywood seem far more important than it ever is thought to be or, for that matter, ever is. It’s a movie for movie people.”

While audiences can be lukewarm on movies about actors and show business, the Academy membership loves nominating them and often gives them the ultimate prize: Last year, The ArtistÂ’s tale of old Hollywood hadnÂ’t cracked $40 million domestically by the time the Oscars were held, but it was still named Best Picture. In 2003, Chicago (showbiz and jazz hands!) won out over far more serious, somber dramas like The Hours, Gangs of New York, and The Pianist. And the aforementioned marketing chief theorizes that the reason The KingÂ’s Speech won two years ago was because, while it wasnÂ’t about Hollywood, it was about learning how to play a role one is afraid to play, which strikes a chord with the AcademyÂ’s acting branch.

There is one more example that undoubtedly gives chilling flashbacks to Steven Spielberg, his Lincoln no longer a safe front-runner: In 1999, his Saving Private Ryan was upset in the Best Picture race by yet another comedy about the business of entertainment: Shakespeare in Love, which co-starred — damn him! — Ben Affleck, playing an actor, no less.

Makes perfect sense. If I'd bothered to read anything about the Oscar race I probably would have realized this.

And then, of course, they had the first lady come out to give it its already-known prize.

And Harvey Weinstein -- who hired Stephanie Cutter to promote his own film, pushing a fake political angle -- arranged it.

Posted by: Ace at 08:37 AM | Comments (132)
Post contains 551 words, total size 4 kb.

Listening to the reporting around the looming sequestration cuts, you'd think that this particular $85 billion dollars was the only thing standing between humanity and a return to some sort of Hobbesian state of nature^.

Just as a bit of context, remember that a scant 26 months ago, the Republican Party won a landslide series of House races running on a promise to cut $100 billion from that year's budget (roughly with the same time left in the fiscal year). Of curse they caved and we never saw any such cuts but still, the idea that $85 Billion in cuts from $1 trillion in discretionary spending (or about half of that at this point in the year) is so beyond the realm of the possible is laughable. Naturally, spending that kind of money is as easy as pie.

Since this $85 billion is key to continued existence of humanity, I think it's only fair that the government workers, MSM and of course the Democrats have something to rally to as they fight to save humanity. So with apologies to Mr. Tolkien I offer this battle cry...

“Hold your ground, hold your ground! Sons of Spending, of Government Service Pay Grades, my brothers! I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the spending of Americans fails, when we forsake redistribution and break all bonds of government pay checks, but it is not this day. An hour of woes and tea party protests, when the age of spending comes crashing down! But it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear in this good Budget, I bid you stand, Men of Washington, D.C.!”

*Thanks to Kevin in ABQ for correcting my mistake.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:22 AM | Comments (62)
Post contains 322 words, total size 2 kb.

Comment here until the head ewok shows up with all sorts of content.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 07:52 AM | Comments (85)
Post contains 17 words, total size 1 kb.

• MSNBC, "Almost A Bona Fide Organ Of State Propaganda"
  
• Moochelle Presents Best Picture Oscar
  
• Edgy: The Onion Calls A 9 Year Old A C**t
  
• Embarrassing: Best Actress Winner Trips Up The Stairs To Receive Oscar
  
• America's Ph.D Bust
  
• Gun Sales Skyrocketing In South Jersey
  
• Feel Good Story Of The Day
  
• Want To Help The Blaze Get On New Cable Providers? Read This And Do Your Part
  
• How Republicans Can Get Cool
  
• Raul Casto Announces Retirement In Five Years
  
• Remember You Stupid Right Wingers, The Dems Don't Want To Take Your Guns
  
• Sequestration And The Coming Depression
  
• Party Dominance Doesn't Last
  
• Egypt Fouls The Gaza Tunnels
  
• Beretta Threatens To Leave Maryland
  
• Trade Protectionism Looms As Central Banks Exhaust QE
  
• US Hospitals Scandalous Price Gouging
  
• DC Comics To Kill Off Robin
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:10 AM | Comments (294)
Post contains 145 words, total size 3 kb.

There was a time when Detroit was the very epitome of America, a scale miniature of the larger country: vibrant, productive, assertive, brash, and above all, modern. It was the world capital for the manufacture of that most modern machine, the automobile. It served the best food, it produced the best music. Its industry was a beacon calling people, black and white, from far away. Detroit was a city that perfectly modeled the nation of which it was a part. That's still true. It's just that the qualities of the country it exemplifies aren't as uplifting as they used to be. So much that was right about Detroit went wrong right around 1967, and the city just kept getting sicker ever afterwards...and it was mainly due to a lousy Democrat-dominated political class that has persisted ever since. (Proof positive that where voters and politics are concerned, ideology will trump self-interest nearly every time.)

Speaking of Detroit: about half of Detroit's citizens don't pay their property taxes. This isn't purely a cases of people being deadbeats; many Detroiters aren't paying their property taxes because the city isn't providing services. And why isn't the city providing services? Because the city is broke and can't afford them. The city has also over-assessed a lot of the real-estate in the city, relying in records that are now years out of date. Detroit has projected tax receipts based on what they thought all that property was worth, and predictably, their assumptions were way, way off.

I've spoken before about what an empty, politicized term "middle class" has become. It says nothing about how people really live, how much money they make, or what their social situation is. Democrats use it in purely class-warfare terms; Republicans use it in an archaic sense that hasn't been true for forty years at least. It means nothing, but politicians cling to the term out of a kind of atavistic fright. The no longer understand the world or the forces that shape it -- theirs is a fear-response to try and claw back a world that has passed on. (Monty's view: "the good life" is a state of mind, not a bank-account balance.)

Many former students (in this case, a veterinarian) come out of school owing the equivalent of a mortgage on a house, right out of the gate. In many cases, the student's earnings do not justify the costs of higher education -- the lost time and huge debt inflict a hit to a person's earning power that in some cases takes decades to clear. In many cases, it would be better to work a lower-wage job right out of high school; the net pay over the next ten to twenty years would still be higher. People who come out of school owing a huge amount of money also pose risks to prospective mates, which can hurt their chances at forming a family or even having stable relationships. A high debt-to-income ratio isn't simply a fiscal problem -- it's an emotional and social one as well.

If I were to give young people one piece of advice that I sincerely hope they take to heart, it would be this: Don't make going to school a career.

Nick Gillespie at Reason puts some hard truth to the young 'uns: "Hey, kids: Tonight you're young, tomorrow you're unemployed."

Europe's politicians will still put on a brave face and declare that the worst has passed as far as the financial crisis goes, but privately, they know the truth: nothing is fixed. In fact, the situation is slowly but surely getting worse. It not so much death by conflagration as by slow strangulation. And in the end, much of this can be laid at the feet of the reckless, smug politicians and "experts" who started the ball rolling so long ago.

ObamaCare and the '29ers'.

Moody's to Great Britain: BAM!

You want your scary chart-fu? I got your scary chart-fu right here.

The pension fund that ate California. A long piece, but it does a great job at explaining why California is so boned...and why effective solutions are going to be so hard to find.

President Obama angrily denounces his own idea. His Majesty the King finds it inconvenient when his previous statements are used against him.
more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:11 AM | Comments (155)
Post contains 744 words, total size 6 kb.