But pixelates out all the good stuff.

If anyone can find a non-pixilated version of this video, I'm sure it would be appreciated. But I doubt it exists. I think she pixelated it at the source (that is, her own copy, before disseminating it).

This is what we call a "Bullshit Post." And I got another one of these in the chamber, too.

[Update JohnE.] I'm sure I've seen faker interviews, I just can't remember any right now.

Posted by: Ace at 11:28 AM | Comments (245)
Post contains 86 words, total size 1 kb.

An interesting debate at Breitbart.

Joel Pollack wrote an interesting post in which he expressed his distaste for what he calls "tit for tat" reporting on racially-charged crimes.

Back when the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin story first exploded onto the national scene, with false accounts of a "white" shooter and edited 911 calls, we at Breitbart News made an editorial decision not to become involved in the racial tit-for-tat reporting that tempted many other sites. There was no reason to draw attention to the hypocrisy of the media and the so-called civil rights establishment regarding crimes where the racial labels were reversed, because the labels in the Martin case were wrong in the first place.

I dislike the tit-for-tat stories anyway. The fact that the media and the left are obsessed with race does not mean the rest of us must be. And there is the very real danger that in trying to demonstrate the hypocrisy of race-mongers like Al Sharpton and the journalists who follow eagerly in their wake, focusing on the race of perpetrators and victims ends up emphasizing stereotypes and inflaming passions--quite independently of the argument at hand. We risk becoming no better than those hypocrites whom we would criticize.

Although I think there's truth in his caution against kneejerk "you did it first" reactions -- which, being human, we all share, and when I say "we" I most definitely include myself -- I don't agree with him that such stories serve only this base purpose (although, of course, humans being base in many ways -- myself again included -- the base purpose will often be the main driving purpose.)

And so, while I agree with Pollack to the extent I'd say there should be a big Caution Flag waved on such stories, I think I agree more with Nice Deb:

[W]hen an incident like the Trayvon Martin killing happens, what we see is a whirlwind of political activity - the race hustlers move in with their bull-horns, the media runs with their racialist narrative, and white liberals, steeped in white guilt, try to outdo each other proving how morally outraged they are about the incident. And the rest of us left in the dust, saying whaaaa?

A sort of mass hysteria ensues. It takes a sort of hysterical blindness not to see the evidence that race wasn't a factor in the killing and that Zimmerman killed in self defense. What people hear is the racial grievance narrative - the white (Hispanic) guy, motivated by racial animus, hunting down the defenseless black child like a dog and executing him when he tried to fight back.

That's how an unfortunate, but relatively rare event - a (white) Hispanic shooting a black teenager - becomes a huge cause celebre.

Suddenly, what (most) everyone knows is a real problem - black on white crime - is flipped in peoples' minds and presto-chango- the real problem becomes white on black crime.

I would diagnose the phenomena as temporary insanity - except in the case of most libs - it's not so temporary.

As in most things, hiding the truth may serve some function of politeness (as well as creating a pretext to demand political payoffs in other areas) but ultimately all lies cause more problems than the truth.

White people -- and black people, for that matter -- do not fear underclass (a group which includes all races, but in which blacks are overrepresented) criminality due to racism. They fear underclass criminality because of a lethal level of underclass criminality.

I suppose we could all agree to lie about this until the stars burn out of the heavens but I'm not really sure what that accomplishes.

You can read the whole discussion (including Doc Zero's thoughts) here.

I'd weigh in but it would be a very long post and I'm not sure I have that in me today.

I guess I'd once again ask this very rhetorical question:

The media does not report black-on-white crimes -- which are, as a statistical matter, far more likely to occur -- due to fears that ignorant, angry, nothing-to-lose whites will be incensed and attempt some racial score settling on their own.

Okay fair enough.

So... I guess I would have to ask what effect the constant drumbeat of white (Hispanic)-on-black crime reporting would have on ignorant, angry, nothing-to-lose blacks.

Are they somehow immune from this sort of thinking?

Posted by: Ace at 10:33 AM | Comments (241)
Post contains 755 words, total size 5 kb.

On Thursday, I think, in the Open Thread round-up, I mentioned this story, claiming that a principal was forcing kids to "kneel" before him. In the comments DAve said I had the story completely wrong but I failed to follow up.

Via @dloesch, there's a lot more to this story and it never should have been used (as I used it) for quick-hit outrage purposes.

Basically the school's idea is this: Kids get all hyper, running around at recess, then they continue that hyper behavior when it's time to come back in from lunch, running and tripping and shouting like demons, as kids will. So, the school has them take a knee at the end of lunch, as a coach might do, to get that hyper energy to dissipate out from them, and I guess to change their minds over from the Run Like Angry Vikings setting to the Get Ready to Sit Still and Listen to a Teacher Talking setting.

Whatever the merits of this policy are, it certainly isn't a case of a principal demanding kids kneel before Zod.

And, by way of apology, here's some polar bear cubs playing with a giant ball.

Posted by: Ace at 09:58 AM | Comments (169)
Post contains 214 words, total size 1 kb.

The Struggle. Just like Rosa Parks' struggle.

Hayes said he would be competitive about winning his time slot, which places him against Fox News ratings king Bill OÂ’Reilly and CNNÂ’s Anderson Cooper, but he has been anything but. MSNBC has been in a slump overall as a network during a news-heavy summer.

Last week, Hayes finished behind OÂ’Reilly and Cooper Monday through Thursday (FridayÂ’s ratings have not yet been published), and he bottomed out with just 440,000 viewers Thursday to take fourth place, behind HLNÂ’s Nancy Grace (449,000), Cooper (640,000) and OÂ’Reilly (2,525,000).

Oh, and people keep noticing that MSNBC is Stalinist in its single-minded dedication to the party line. This week, the New Yorker notices.

And Keith Olbermann says he doesn't like politics anymore, that he's just "burned out" on politics, which, coincidentally enough, is just what his Last Possible Employer wants to hear.

Of course that doesn't mean he's burned out of being a shitsack of a human being and throwing rages and snits and generally behaving like a BPD drama addict.

Posted by: Ace at 04:54 PM | Comments (233)
Post contains 197 words, total size 2 kb.

Oh, IÂ’ve got a garbage-barge full of DOOM for you today, my groovy babies. A feculent stinking mountain of lies, perfidy, avarice, cant, ridiculousness, weakness, stupidity, cupidity, poltroonery, and good old fashioned fraud.

It takes courage to save money? Really? Is that where the bar is at now? We used to say that the GI charging a Nazi machine-gun nest was being courageous. Now all it takes is dropping a spare buck into the change-jar every now and then. Next thing you know we'll be hearing "it takes courage to wipe your ass after taking a dump" PSA's. Remember: this is what your government thinks of you. This is their opinion of you. (Adam Carolla recently riffed on this as well.)

The Treasury will reach the debt limit by mid-October. Or I should say, "the charming genteel fiction known as the 'debt limit'", because it is obvious to every creature upon this earth that the heedless borrowing will go on and on until the SMOD ends it all.

The 5% recovery. I'd phrase this a bit differently: if you're a friend or court favorite of His Majesty the King, you will prosper. If not....

ItÂ’s been obvious from the dawn of time that many people will accept a lower standard of living in exchange for not having to work (or working less). When the government incentivizes this behavior through generous welfare benefits, it only exacerbates the problem. Unemployed poor people donÂ’t create great works of art or think deep thoughts; they sit at home and watch television, have kids they canÂ’t afford, and get into trouble with the law. The devil makes work for idle hands.

While we’re on the topic of being poor, read “In another country". more...

Posted by: Monty at 04:20 AM | Comments (100)
Post contains 1010 words, total size 9 kb.

When Lady Gaga seems wholesome by comparison, you've done something wrong.

Miley Cyrus, who is crazy but also rich so, like those totty English aristocrats who wander around their estates re-naming rabbits "Zobblydops" and birds "Fleegurrumps" like addled Adams in the Garden of Eden, she's allowed to remain free, or, should I say, at large.

The VMAs, which are a show, let's face it, pretty much just for children (do twenty year olds even listen to pop anymore?), is essentially now an X-rated show which should be called Baby's First Porn.

Here's Will Smith's family reacting in horror to what Cyrus is up to:

That isn't a joke, by the way. That's their actual reaction. (Update: A commenter says that I'm wrong; he says Rush says that picture was taken in reaction to Lady Ga-Ga's performance, not Miley Cyrus' is. I don't actually know.)

There's a bad video of the performance here; I don't see any good video of it out yet. She begins the show with some sexual pantomime involving teddy bears, and then it just gets distasteful after that.

It's like a Super Bowl halftime show if the two teams vying for the championship were the San Francisco Schizophrenics and the New York City Exhibitionists.

Oh No:

She sent me some tweets that I thought, frankly, were inappropriate.

Posted by: Anthony Weiner

More: Lady Gaga's performance can be seen here.

Kelly Clarkson apparently dropped a great burn on Twitter, saying that she just watched "a couple of pitchy strippers" on the VMAs.

Having now watched Gaga's act -- eh. Apart from near nudity (skimpy thong bikini), which frankly counts as "G" rated now as far as the VMAs go, the rest of the performance was just some old Quick Change act stuff. Yeah, for some reason, it has long been a staple of magic shows and variety shows to change your clothes quickly.

She does an especially lame version of a Quick Change act in which she just takes off or puts on small items of clothing, and wigs. And no point do you think, "Wow, how did she do that change?"

I have to think Will Smith's family was reacting to Cyrus, not Gaga. Confirmed: Fox and Friends says the Smith family was reacting to Cyrus. They have some short clips of the pitchy stripper.

Posted by: Ace at 08:36 AM | Comments (512)
Post contains 408 words, total size 3 kb.

Greetings from gray, rainy Houston. The American Legion convention is in full swing here. Keep an eye on my Twitter account for pictures and news from that. One story that I'm tracking while I'm here is concern that the IRS plans to target the American Legion for unusual scrutiny if it wants to keep its tax-exempt status.

Also, Houston-area readers, if you're interested in joining me and some other morons for some drinks downtown on Tuesday evening, email me at gabriel (dot) malor (at) gmail.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 07:17 AM | Comments (307)
Post contains 101 words, total size 1 kb.

So President Red-line let his mouth get him into a situation that his rear can't get him out of on Syria? Color me shocked.

Posted by: andy at 02:57 AM | Comments (178)
Post contains 32 words, total size 1 kb.

• Are We About To Enter A War With An Iranian Proxy?
  
• Steyn: Obamacare's Hierarchy Of Privilege
  
• Obama's Failed Grand Strategy
  
• Police Nab Second Suspect In Delbert Belton Murder
  
• The 50th Anniversary March of MLK's March On Washington Went About As You'd Expect
  
• Meet The Radical Lawyers Suing Bobby Jindal To Block School Choice
  
• US Durable Goods Post Largest Drop In Nearly A Year
  
• The Culture Of Poverty
  
• Bobby Jindal: It Is Time To Get Over Race
  
• M.O.H. To Be Awarded To Ty Carter
  
• Did Riggs Throw The Match Against Billie Jean King?
  
• Efforts To Repeal Stand Your Ground Falter And Fail
  
• Is Obama The Worst President Ever?
  
• Market Innovation, Not Government Regulations, Are The Key To Keeping College Costs Down
  
• Don't Bring A Knife To A Gun Fight
  
• Good: The NSA Bugged The UN
  
• China Throws Money At Kenya
  
• Lawmakers Aim To Limit 'Revenge Porn' Postings
  
• Was Defacing OF The Jackie Robinson Statue A Phony Hate Crime
  
• Detroit: Thar Be Monsters!
  

Follow me on twitter.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 05:31 AM | Comments (277)
Post contains 181 words, total size 4 kb.

Automatic Citizenship at Birth

Is pretty much a New World idea. Most other countries require at least one parent already be a citizen in order for a child born there to automatically get citizenship.

The Princess Bride and the Dapper Don

Reiner: Yeah, I walked outside the restaurant, and John Gotti was there with six wiseguys. There was a guy beside the limo who looked like Luca Brasi. He looked at me, and said: "You killed my father. Prepare to die!" I almost went right then! He said, "I love dat movie, da Princess Bride!"

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:17 PM | Comments (517)
Post contains 1156 words, total size 15 kb.