Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Because there’s just not enough Truth in the Public Discourse, Glenn Beck has launched his own high-minded, self-policing, politics-neutral beacon of journalistic integrity, The Blaze:

The image of flame is a powerful [No noun in original text, Ed.]. It has long stood for a burning truth. A truth that is not consumed. The Blaze will pursue truth. Of course we will make mistakes. Honest mistakes. And we’ll be quick with corrections. We intend to earn your trust and keep it day in and day out with hard work and a lot of transparency.

Needless to say, the Truth is in no danger of being “consumed” or even casually bumped by a passer-by on Beck’s clunky, eye-hating billboard for Goldline and Tea-Party-Hijacker Dick Armey. Nor is it likely to be invited to a Midtown lunch-meet by Beck’s All-Star Editorial Farm Team of would-be Conservative media party-crashers who never got let past the Velvet Rope:

♦ Scott Baker, Managing Editor:  Former Breitbart VP of Business Development and co-founder of Breitbart.tv. Also, an erstwhile Pittsburgh news anchor who self-produces a Conservative vanity video project called The B-Cast...which aptly describes both the program and the talent.

♦ Pam Key, Associate Editor/Video Producer:  Former video contributor to the proudly racist, pathologically Obama-hating Naked Emperor News.

♦ Jonathon M. Seidl, Assistant Editor:  Occasional writer/contributor for relentless truth-pumps WORLD Magazine and The American Spectator.

♦ Meredith Jessup, Assistant Editor:  Former associate editor for the eminently non-agendized Townhall.com and contributing editor for Townhall Magazine.

No doubt, The Blaze will fill America’s aching void of Must-Read, Small-Bore, Lib-Loathing Flackery in the Age of Restoring Honor.

SEMI-RELATED BONUS: Chris Hitchens calls Beck’s 8/28 rally “the Waterworld of white self-pity.”

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 08/31/10 at 10:15 AM
Comments (13) • Permalink

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Heh. Under the headline “Taking Over the Streets?” Derbyshire at NRO publishes photos from an email fan which the writer avers are “an accurate picture of every Friday afternoon in several locations throughout New York City where there are mosques with a large number of Muslims that cannot fit into the mosque.” Rather than verify the images up-front, he milks their Wholly Speculative Outrage Content, then leaves it to his readers to do his journalism for him:

If this kind of obstruction of roads and sidewalks is really going on in Nurse Bloomberg’s city — where a restaurateur can get a four-digit fine for placing a chair on the sidewalk without the proper permit — it’s a disgrace. But give me the facts, someone, please.

Fortunately, co-Cornerite Yuval Levin hipped him to an online Snopes debunking that correctly identifies the images as scenes from NYC’s annual Muslim Day Parade. However, a quick Google search of Muslim+Prayer+New York would have led him to a June 23 rant by Arch Islamofreakoutista Pam Geller, without having to rely on a well-known source of Liberal Disinformation. 

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 08/26/10 at 05:57 PM
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The NIH has issued a public health advisory about yet another outbreak of the persistent opportunistic contagious inflammatory disease quitterrhea among vulnerable populations.

The etiology of quitterrhea is well understood. The causative bacterium, Wackaloonia me-me-memensis McCain, is spread by contact with exudate from an agent infected with Twitterrhea. This can be exacerbated by repeated exposure to the closely associated logorrhea.

If untreated, it may lead to relatively shortlived, unfocused outbreaks of blogorrhea, which can be remedied successfully by liberal application of topical preparations.

Researchers continue to track the disease vectors, and there is evidence of a buildup of resistance among those subject to prolonged exposure.

In an informal briefing, an NIH spokesperson reported yesterday: “We’d be more worried, but all the evidence is that this strain of Wackaloonia has one fatal flaw in its genetic makeup. Its half-life among the general population is relatively short.”

When asked to clarify this in lay terms, she said: “Well, at a certain point in the development of each episode, it just seems to give up and go dormant until it moves on to its next set of victims.”

Unrelated: Brainerd diarrhea.

Posted by YAFB on 08/26/10 at 07:40 AM
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

7. Kathryn Jean Lopez, The National Review

"The Virgin"

Approximate Age: 34

Accomplishments: Lopez has worked for the National Review for a third of her life. Her reign as editor of its blog, The Corner, has been marked by very little actual editing (did you know Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife’s name was Loretta?), at least one sentence from May 25, 2004 that should be remembered—“If the radio gig doesn’t work out[,] Al Franken can always run for Senate”—and pom-poms whenever gays suffers a civil rights setback. The Corner perch has given Lopez entrée to the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times and the cable networks.

Fun Fact: From her Amazon wish list: The Nanny: Complete Season 4, The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: Season One and an Israeli paratrooper bag.

Antecedent: None. Lopez is a true original. Never in the history of American letters has an editor had so little grasp of basic sentence structure.

You know you want to read the rest...

Posted by Kevin K. on 08/18/10 at 07:56 AM
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Sunday, August 15, 2010

Wow. If Bill Kristol were any more of a reptile, TBogg’s blistering takedown would qualify as an Extinction-Level Event.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 08/15/10 at 09:42 PM
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Saturday, August 14, 2010

The wrong John Hawkins.

Right Wing News (“Kneecapping Barack Obama at every opportunity.”) conducted a “poll” the other week to establish, well, what exactly I’m not quite sure.

They asked 100 RW blogs for their votes for the 25 worst figures in American history.

The resulting list provided by the 43 blogs that could be bothered to respond runs the gamut from Saul Alinsky, with a surprisingly poor showing considering how many column inches he occupies among the frightwing, at a lowly no. 23, to a palpable cluster of perfidy at equal no. 13 with Al Gore, Noam Chomsky, Richard Nixon, Jane Fonda, Harry Reid, and Nancy Pelosi, to a predictable President Obama at a solid no. 2, to the no. 1 Worst Figure In American History ... (roll of drums) ... President Jimmy Carter.

John Hawkins (ahaarrrr), who announced the results for Right Wing News and is suspiciously fond of beginning sentences with “Also,” conceded:

Also, it’s worth keeping in mind that this is a fairly conservative group of bloggers and their selections reflected that.

No shit, Sherlock.

As Jim Geraghty at the National Review observed:

Some of My Fellow Righty Bloggers Need a Broader Definition of ‘Worst Figure’

Well, he said a lot more than that, as that’s just the title, but he fluffed it by taking it seriously enough to offer his own nominations.

One can nitpick any poll results, of course, and I’m not going to do that here as pretty well everyone who has a blog will probably have a go at it, if today’s Memorandum is anything to go by.

What I’d like to do instead is go all Nate Silver, reverse engineer the results, and give you my own conclusions from the raw data below the fold

read the whole post »

Posted by YAFB on 08/14/10 at 02:26 PM
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Tuesday, August 10, 2010

In a triumph of maverickiness over common sense, Sarah Palin and her ship o’loons have yet again managed to turn what would have been a minor local spat into a national news story.

We’ve documented this farce from inception (the video of Palin and her goons surrounding a protester) to blatant obfuscation (Conservatives4Palin’s laughable first attempt to make all this go away) to desperation (Palin and her fans’ easily disproved denial that anything untoward happened). And now we come to the next stage: retaliation.

Shannyn Moore has been in the sights of Conservatives4Palin for quite some time as an effective counter to the Alaska mythology the Palin schtick relies on. And now the sights have zeroed in on the new enemy: the audacious Kathleen Gustafson.

read the whole post »

Posted by YAFB on 08/10/10 at 08:28 AM
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Monday, August 02, 2010

From Elon Green’s review of Pamela Geller’s new book screecher The Post-American Presidency:

In another era, Pam Geller would be rotting away on Blackwell’s Island, counting cockroaches.

You know you want to read the rest...

Posted by Kevin K. on 08/02/10 at 08:33 AM
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Thursday, July 29, 2010

No doubt in cahoots with the filthy liberal scum at The View who, according to Rush Limbaugh, by now must have calluses on the calluses on their knees, Shirley Sherrod has chosen today to announce that she does want a piece of Breitbart, kthx.

And unlike Breitbart’s disclaimer of his avowed quest to destroy libraldumb, it doesn’t sound like she’s kidding:

Speaking Thursday at the National Association of Black Journalists convention, Sherrod said she would “definitely” sue over the video that took her remarks out of context.

...

Sherrod said she had not received an apology from Breitbart and no longer wanted one.

“He had to know that he was targeting me,” she said.

The queue of people Sherrod has yet to receive an apology from is lengthy:

“It wasn’t all media. It was Fox,” Sherrod says in commenting on President Obama’s remarks on The View blaming the media in part for the story. She says she also continues to get a few harassing phone calls over the incident. Sherrod says she still has not heard from Cheryl Cook, the USDA official who called her on the road and pressed her to resign. She says she would like to hear from Cook and that there are many problems at the agency that need to be addressed that people of color there have brought to her attention.

And where is the customary bluster from the astroturfing wingnut buffoon who set this whole farce off?

Breitbart did not immediately respond to calls or e-mails seeking comment.

Well, let’s thank the FSM for small mercies.

read the whole post »

Posted by YAFB on 07/29/10 at 12:50 PM
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Thursday, July 22, 2010

Yep, that’s pretty much it.

And, nope—it’s not worth Photoshopping him into a prison movie with Clarence Thomas.

[UPDATE] OK, so maybe he’s worth a really bad Cowardly Liar pic, just to fuck with him. But I’m not going to waste another cool clown head on this pathetic dick-wrapper.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 07/22/10 at 03:39 PM
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Wednesday, July 21, 2010

He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it;
and whoso breaketh an hedge, a serpent shall bite him.

—Ecclesiastes 10:8

OK, so Internet Fabulist Andy B. never possessed the entire videotape of Shirley Sherrod’s presentation to the NAACP, which so handily nullifies his charges of racism that the Global Institute of Advanced Neologistics has announced a crash initiative to develop a next-generation, quantum-powered synonym for “wankerism.” 

But, but, but…that doesn’t matter, because the story wasn’t about Sherrod, it was about the NAACP audience’s reaction to what she sorta half-said in the truncated video segment Andy released without tracking down the complete source tape. 

But, but, but…that doesn’t matter because Andy didn’t mean to get Sherrod fired from her post at the USDA.

But, but, but…that doesn’t matter, either, because the real story is that the White wife of the White farmer whose farm Sherrod helped save and who has risen to Sherrod’s defense could be an insane robot sent to discredit Andy’s reporting.

In other words, Breitbart isn’t responsible for getting the story right, or evaluating his source material. He’s also not responsible for the consequences of his inflammatory, inaccurate sensationalism. And if the people who actually lived through his sloppily-spun story dare to challenge him, they’d better have more credible proof of what they’re saying than the unvetted crap he posts on his own site, dammit. So cut him some fucking slack, willya?

Meanwhile, back on Earth:

MediaMatters—Breitbart’s Sherrod narrative unravels

Huffington Post —Shirley Sherrod Defended By Diverse Coalition Calling For USDA To Give Her Job Back

WSJ Washington Wire—Vilsack Reviews Sherrod Firing

MediaMatters—Will media fall for Breitbart’s attempt to spin his spectacular failure?

TPM—Breitbart Feels Sorry For Shirley Sherrod   (Nice, but she’ll still sue you, you self-righteous dink.)

Newsweek—The Shirley Sherrod ‘Scandal’   (Ouch! National Review slam joins Beck and Erickson in questioning Andy’s queasy-making “journalistic” practices.)

More to follow, I’m sure. As “Exploding Fake-News Cigars” go, it would be tough to top the ACORN “Pimp” videos…but this one’s a contender.

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 07/21/10 at 10:20 AM
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Friday, July 16, 2010

*To be precise, the poll has Palin tied with The Prez at 46% and notes that Obama would handily beat no-name AZ Gov. Jan Brewer, who was apparently tossed into the list for ballast. But the Big News (heh!) is that The Usual Suspects (Romney, Huckabee, Gingrich) all outpolled Sarah in a hypothetical 2012 match-up with Obam-Ra.

Not by much, granted:

He trails Mitt Romney 46-43, Mike Huckabee 47-45, Newt Gingrich 46-45, and is even tied with Sarah Palin at 46.

....but enough to make me question wingnut blog headlines that tout Palin’s “surge to a tie” in a “Democratic-sympathetic” poll as an “earthquake”...especially since the PPP survey also revealed that Palin has the highest negatives of the major GOP contenders, as did a recent poll of Iowa voters conducted by the Des Moines Register.

And, anyway, if you’re going to get all worked-up by a Left-leaning pollster, how about showing a little love for the Time poll (released yesterday) that has Obama trouncing Palin 55%-34%?

read the whole post »

Posted by StrangeAppar8us on 07/16/10 at 12:44 PM
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Thursday, July 15, 2010

This just in:

The Daily Caller, one of the fastest-growing online media properties, announced today its acquisition of KeithOlbermann.com, expanding the company’s global reach into a new segment of the online political market.  For more than six months The Daily Caller has been a recognized market leader in commentary about Keith Olbermann.  Ruth Graham’s weekly Olbermann wrap-up, “We watch, because we’re paid to,” appears on The Daily Caller’s website each Friday.

We plan to make The Daily Caller the one-stop online shop for Keith Olbermann commentary,” said Editor-in-Chief Tucker Carlson.  “We will be THE Keith Olbermann superstore.”

I’m beside myself at the prospect of all the wingnut Keith Olbermann commentary I might want to read being available in one location. Meta is the new black.

read the whole post »

Posted by YAFB on 07/15/10 at 04:34 PM
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Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Saw while browsing a few minutes ago…

It gets better…

No shit.  But why did it take until July of 2010 for Google to figure that out?

Posted by Kevin K. on 07/07/10 at 09:36 AM
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Thursday, July 01, 2010

PJTV’s AlfonZo Rachel in his latest ZoNation video (below the fold):

I think it’s funny how liberals are always whining that we need to only use wind power or solar power because there’s not enough oil to sustain us. It’s a finite resource, but let some of that oil bust through a pipe out at sea and then they’re like, “Oh my God, look at all that oil!” It’s weird how in their minds there’s not enough oil to sustain us, but there’s enough oil to destroy us.

You know what else is funny/weird in my mind? How this video actually gets more sophisticated and intelligent when it switches to the subject of “fart taxes.” Low bar, I know, but there it is.

read the whole post »

Posted by Kevin K. on 07/01/10 at 12:24 PM
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