That which did not happen

In an obituary for recently deceased fashion designer Charles Nolan, NY Times writer Eric Wilson inserts this:

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, for example, Tipper Gore was wearing a periwinkle Charles Nolan coat-and-dress ensemble when she was kissed so passionately by her husband, Vice President Al Gore, that the resulting image was widely described as humanizing Mr. Gore’s robotic reputation during his run for president.

This isn’t a political argument, I’m not writing this because I’m a Republican, it’s just plain as day that that is not what actually happened. If you’re going to insert an unrelated tale like this, into the story of someone’s life after they die, at least make it somewhat accurate.

I would have went with:

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, for example, Tipper Gore was wearing a periwinkle Charles Nolan coat-and-dress ensemble when she was kissed so famously by her husband, Vice President Al Gore.

Or, if details about what happened next really needed to be included:

At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, for example, Tipper Gore was wearing a periwinkle Charles Nolan coat-and-dress ensemble when she was kissed by her husband, Vice President Al Gore. While the moment was set up to humanize Mr. Gore, the public reaction focused on the clumsiness and awkwardness of the moment and actually made Mr. Gore seem less human, something not seen as previously possible. The outfit was not to blame.

And because it’s a British paper expect cleavage at the link

Interesting article in Britain’s Daily Mail about a woman marrying a man who turns out to be a jihadist. The key part for me:

Abdul wasn’t from a poor family and neither were many of the other members of Al-Muhajiroun. A lot were highly educated. But Asian communities can be insular and some young Muslims grow up feeling separate from British life.

If there’s one trope I’d like to see discarded completely it’s the one where would-be terrorists are poor and uneducated and so easily brainwashed because of their circumstance. It’s a way of wrangling our sympathy for those who want us dead. Even the last line, about feeling separate, is there to pull at heart-strings. Don’t fall for it.

“The safety net has become a hammock.”

A must-read by a teacher in an urban Connecticut high school.

Ouch

Dorian Davis is hilarious. His take on SOTU starts like this:

I watched what I thought was the State of the Union for 15 minutes on Tuesday before I figured out that it was The Biggest Loser.

The state of our conservative union

My latest post on WNYC’s “It’s a Free Country” calls out conservative groups boycotting CPAC over GOProud’s inclusion in the participating organizations.

I’m going to CPAC this year, after a two-year getting-married-and-having-a-kid hiatus, and really looking forward to it. I’ll be covering it both here and on “It’s a Free Country”. Get ready! And I’m definitely going to try to go to Andrew Breitbart’s big ol’ gay 80’s party so if anyone has an invite for me, let me know.

Also…

I’m mentioned in an NBC story. I wasn’t impressed with the bipartisan seating arrangement.

And…

My take on the State of the Union is up at It’s a Free Country.

Me, me, me

I’m scheduled to be on the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC tomorrow (Wednesday) sometime in the 10 o’clock am hour (looking like 10:15-10:40am).

You can listen on 820AM or 93.9FM, or http://www.wnyc.org/

Also, I’m quoted in AMNY mocking the bipartisan seating arrangement at the State of the Union.

I guess he wasn’t told no one reads Time

Benjamin Netanyahu responds to an overwhelmingly biased article on Israel in Time Magazine.

I actually kind of like that he has responded. Yes, Time is ridiculous and yes, their articles are written by angry 8th graders, but I like the idea of stopping inaccuracies about Israel wherever they may lie. The last line is the killer:

“I can assure you that no matter how biased and unbalanced your correspondents’ coverage of Israel, they will always be free here to write whatever they want. Of course, Time is also free not to print it.”

And while we’re on the topic of irrational, insane Palin-hate

James Taranto has a must-read on the subject.

Join me

I have to admit, I have taken the liberal blame-game after the Tucson shootings extremely personally. I can’t stop calling out the people I know who engaged in it. They say something political, anything at all, and I say “you blamed Sarah Palin for a mass murder.” All of them have dialed back, of course, and are shocked, shocked!, I would accuse them of the exact thing that they did. What? They just chose an hour after the shooting in Tucson to post the Palin target map and ALL liberal commentary tying Sarah Palin to the shooting. But they didn’t *accuse* her of inspiring murder, that’s crazy-talk!

My history with Sarah Palin is like this: I loved her as John “most boring candidate alive-ish” McCain’s running mate. I mean, I bought the t-shirt and everything. Then she stepped down from her elected post in Alaska and, for me, ended her political career. I think she is a smart, powerful person who raises the ire of the left merely by existing. I love that she has developed a career for herself basically just pissing off the left, but I don’t want her running for any public office again, ever.

The obsessed left will continue to badger her, of course, and when they accuse her of inspiring murder in the future (and they probably will again), I will defend her as I’ve done for the past few weeks. But in general my plan to respond to all other nonsensical Palin criticism is this: every time some nutbar leftist posts his or her rant of the week against Palin, I will provide them with a link to the video below. A rightwingy Rick-Rolling of sorts. I always prefer to use humor with the ridiculous and I’m tired of being angry at the stupid. Use it on Facebook, Twitter, blog comments, anywhere you’d like!

Take it

Aww, looks like Ricky Gervais hurt some feelings at the Golden Globes last night:

Gervais opened the live telecast by poking exuberant fun at the likes of Tim Allen, Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson and Robert Downey Jr. He claimed to have had to help Philip Berk, president of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, off the toilet and “put his teeth back in”. He introduced Bruce Willis as “Ashton Kutcher’s dad” and explained that Johnny Depp’s critically panned caper movie The Tourist had only been nominated because the voters of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association “accepted bribes”. Neither Willis nor Depp appeared especially amused.

…

Following the ceremony, Tim Allen, Tom Hanks and Robert Downey Jr all appeared to be at least mildly uncomfortable with Gervais’s performance.

Gosh, I can’t imagine what that’s like, going to see a show (or movie, or band play) and have the performer launch a full-on, unfunny attack on you (or your beliefs). Jim Nolte reminds Hollywood how often they’ve done the same to others:

How many times have those of us in Middle America gotten all settled in for an expected evening of relaxing entertainment, be it at the movies, in front of the television, or in bed with a good book, only to get sucker punched by some cheap, out-of-nowhere sucker punch aimed at our identity, faith or country?
…

Well, how does it feel, Hollywood? How does it feel to be “blindsided” and trapped for a few hours not knowing when it might come again?

Kind of sucks all the fun out of the evening, doesn’t it?

It’s not just middle America, of course, the whole of the Bush administration meant I couldn’t go out in NYC without hearing some dumb performer inform me of their views (and as I wrote a lot at the time, I don’t mind political disagreement as long as I can argue back and am not stuck in the audience receiving a lecture from some doofus with a guitar). Hard to feel sorry for Hollywood for enduring some abuse today.

If I had posted it on Alarming News it would have been full of cursing.

My latest piece for WNYC sums up the last 6 days from a conservative’s point of view.

Answering stupidity

A lot of good stuff has been written in the last few days, disputing the idiocy that Sarah Palin, conservatives or “rhetoric” were responsible for the mass murder in Tucson, but James Taranto nails it like few others. Paul Krugman should apologize and resign.

The atrocity in Tucson

My latest post, on the disgusting mob mentality blame game over yesterday’s shooting, and also examples of all the times liberals have been wrong like this before, is now up at WNYC.

I better be parent A

Back in 2005, guest-blogger Chad wrote about a proposed change on birth certificates that would change the labels Mother and Father to Parent A and Parent B. It seemed kind of absurd that such a thing would happen but 5 years later, it has. Chad sends along the update that the new State Department passport applications will do just that. I don’t know why we’d stop at just Parent A and B. Isn’t that a little unfair to polygamists, parents of twiblings and other nontraditional families?

Pat!

And…yet another piece for WNYC, this one about Pat Toomey being a genius. He convinced the New York Times that he’s going to compromise when he gets to the Senate. I point out how he fooled them.