Hard News: Friday Fun
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What annoys me the most about the whole Malkin/donuts thing is that it's not even a bloody keffiyeh the woman in the ad is wearing. It's check and paisley!
If you want an interesting read on the intellectual framework behind wingnuttert, see Jesus made me puke, by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone.
"Let it out, Matthew," the coach repeated, clutching my forehead. "Just open your mouth."
I shrugged and rattled off the lyrics to the song "What is Autumn?" by the Russian rock band DDT:
What is autumn? It's the sky The crying sky below your feet. Flying about in puddles are the birds and clouds. Autumn I've not been with you for so long!
It's actually a beautiful song, but with my eyes rolled back in my head and recited in Russian it sounded demonic enough.It's familiar. Once you've established that your opponent is completely untrustworthy, then anything they say can be dismissed off-hand without having to consider it rationally. I've seen it engaged in by many groups across a spectrum of topics and belief systems. You realise that you can't take these people head on, you've got to get to the rest of the population aren't full on wingnuts, but who might listen to their claims on the right day.
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But his New York Post had been planting anti-Hillary lies. I'm sure Obama could do with out that sort of support.
Oh, Jesus, Neil -- we're talking about a American tabloid whose best known feature is 'Page Six', a gossip column that makes The Sun look like a sober church newsletter.
One might also think Hillary Clinton could have done without the support of Richard Mellon Scafie's rag, but there you go. And here we are.
As for Scott McLellan -- anyone planning to waste their cash on another entry in that well-populated sub-genre of political publishing: The irony-deficient self justification. To get all Charlie Brooker for a moment: You're no less of a [insert favourite expletive here] now, just because you've written a book about what a [insert favourite expletive here] you were then. And if you had any principles why didn't you quit and blow the whistle WITHOUT a six-figure book deal in your back pocket? That's right... you're a [[insert favourite expletive here]!
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This made me laugh, for its celebration of pointless woolly-arsed bad behaviour, this week.
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I think it was simply Obama using the generic or catch all term...
I think he's just tired, he's also said he's visited 57 states duing the campaign - he must have put in some long hours over the past year.
Not so sure about Sharon Stone, if you watch the full clip it still sounds a bit ditsey but she's making a slightly broader argument, it's a bit of a faux scandel i think -
(I probably didnl't embed that right)
we're talking about a American tabloid
well clearly, but when bogus anti-Hillary stories go straight from The Drudge Report to the New York Post and then uncritically into the world of pundits it's worth considering who's being gamed here.
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(I probably didnl't embed that right)
I fixed it for you. Like I said, no embed code needed, just the URL ...
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Buchenwald is smack in the middle of Germany, only "walking distance" to Auschwitz if you're very dedicated.
Perchance you were thinking of Birkenau, which *is* very close to Auschwitz, but still wasn't liberated by the US.
Duh. My apologies. I took that from a blog comment by someone who claimed to have visited and be highly familiar with both. I have annotated the original post with teh <strike>.
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well clearly, but when bogus anti-Hillary stories go straight from The Drudge Report to the New York Post and then uncritically into the world of pundits it's worth considering who's being gamed here.
Damn good question, Neil. Who's gaming who? Very good question indeed. I know this is going to offend you Neil, but I don't think there's much credibility in Clinton or her supporters pushing the meme that she's a blameless victim of the very people she's quite happy to suck up to.
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(OTOH, I'll go with the WaPo Fact Checker's call that the real problem with Obama's statement is that it perpetuates the myth that America liberated Auschwitz and generally won the war all round.)
I think the most important and telling aspect of this anecdote is that Obama raised it in the context of treating post-traumatic-stress-disorder in veterans rather than in aggrandaising the role his family may have played in liberating Europe.
And it was the first time he had ever mentioned it.
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If it's links ye want try my favourite new thing: Charlie Brooker's Screen Wipe.
Watch Brooker take the piss out of Craig Parker.
Ah yes. I put up just the Craig Parker bit myself a while ago:
http://nz.youtube.com/watch?v=hOBLKGWTLsw
16,000+ views and a continuing lively conversation as to whether or not Craig Parker is or is not a cockend.
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Oh, and my most-viewed YouTube clip evah ...
Ali Williams dumps George Gregan. 64,000 views and 115 trans-Tasman comments.
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Mmm, whale.
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Running short of ignorant and aggressive comments to news stories? Never fear, spEak You're bRanes has an automated generator that will solve that problem!
(Copied direct from my own reg'lar Friday Linky - that's the pick of the litter this week I think.)
Also: dammit! Missed Making Tracks! I hope I get another chance, it sounds like a good wee bit of fun.
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Just going back to Sharon Stone The Guardian's report only quotes the first half of her comments -
"I have been very concerned about how we should deal with the Olympics because they are not being nice to the Dalai Lama, who is a good friend of mine," she said. "And then all this earthquake and all this stuff happened I thought, is that karma?"
and fails to quote the second half of what she says. I think she's being a bit hard done by. My paraphrasing of her is
I've been thinking some negative thoughts blah blah someone please stop me I'm blond and then some real Buddhists did something gernerous that puts me to shame.
Sorry to go on but it does seem to happen a lot and there's extra trouble with transcripts as they don't necessarily capture the intended meaning and will most likely give no indication of irony and other subtleties. And I think there was an element of irony in what Stone is saying that is missed, especially as The Guardian leaves out half her argument.
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That Stephen Fry laughing fit reminded me of this. It's a few months old now but I only stumbled on it this week, via The Standard. You'll probably develop a whole new level of respect for Pippa Wetzell:
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Mmm, whale
Before we get a Hamish the Angus bull protest movement. Can I point that this bull is an impostor. He may be a Highland bull but he is not an Angus!! They look like this!!
Definelty a colour prejudice at work here. What's wrong with black Angus bulls stephen.
So don't believe all you see on the internet
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You'll probably develop a whole new level of respect for Pippa Wetzell:
Feh to Pippa. If she really wants to spend her working life around dumb animals, why doesn't she go to vet school or open a shleter?
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Damn good question, Neil. Who's gaming who?
We’re just going to have to disagree about whether Hillary planting factual good news stories about herself to upstage Obama is in the same league as conservatives planting bogus stories to game coverage of the Dem candidates.
If I were conspiratorially minded I’d make a connection between that and Could the Republicans Pick the Democratic Nominee? -- The Untold Story of How the GOP Rigged Florida and Michigan.
But it’s too complicated to have been deliberate – but that is how it's working out.
After seeing what's happened with coverage in the Primaries I now no longer believe Michel Foucault was mad.
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From the fount of good TV that is the ABC comes The Gruen Transfer, a new show about commercials that contrives not to be a cheap clip show of TVCs that happen to have won an Axis Award but actually manages to intelligently dissect the genre.
Highlight of the first episode: DDB's "pitch" for whales... though not quite in the way you'd expect.
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Emma,
The Pachelbel bloke left out this one: a Kiwi band from the late 60s (this was a hit around the time I started school)
Yep, that's Pete Sinclair doing the intro...
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Here's a French football crowd harassing a linesmen:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=N09IUSh-oD4Can you imagine the NZFRU allowing this kind of spontaneous 'fun' at a Rugby game? Actually, they'd probably make them the Official Fun Crowd People Of The All Blacks bought to you by Powerade
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Yep, that's Pete Sinclair doing the intro...
Shouldn't the Pete Sinclair appearance have been filed under Jolisa's thread?
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Obama's gaff about the concentration camp might have been relatively minor, but he needs to be careful, you only have so many free passes in a campaign, and he has already used up a couple. He is the new guy on the block and a lot of people are seeing him for the first time, so too many screw ups could hurt him. This article lays out the danger quite well.
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/americandebate/19351804.html
It really seems like Clinton is the better bet for the Dems, especially after the recent primary blow outs in Kentucky etc. But it would cause a blow up of enormous proportions to take the nomination off Obama now. The article below lays out the electoral math that favors Clinton.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/obamas_woes_a_tale_of_three_st.html
As for Murdoch, that boy can smell a change in the air, no doubt about that. Although I might not like his prediction this time, I will forever love the guy. My grandmother had a relative or friend who way back when told her that there was this up an coming guy who was going to make it really big, and his name was Rupert Murdoch. God bless Granny, she went out and bought a bunch of stock at the very beginning of what became Newscorp...
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It really seems like Clinton is the better bet for the Dems...
And that's a point that's being lost at the moment. And even, especially, for Obama supporters that must be of concern.
The best analysis of Obama's support base I've seen highlights the fact that he has won states that the Dems just will not win in Nov, whereas Clinton wins the swing Republican states.
But it is over, the supers are no longer listening.
So unless Obama can jig up a new voting coalition, which they've been making noises about, he's gonna lose. Unless he can get the voters that Hillary gets. And there's one very obvious way of doing that.
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WH,
That RCP link says it as clearly as it can be said. As you say, the race is over now and its time to put our efforts into getting Obama elected.
Back to the Friday theme - a book called 'I Was Told There'd Be Cake' has got to be good, right?
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If his granpappy did liberate Auchwitz, it would raise the question of what he was doing in the Red Army?
It's a bit bad that an ostensibly intelligent American would be so ignorant of history and geography as to not know (i) where Auchwitz is and/or (ii) that the Soviets liberated everything more or less east of the Elbe. But I guess whoever gets elected president, they'll be an American. There are some intelligent Americans around, but they mostly live in Wellington.
(Although Brits perhaps tend the other way in the "knowing about WW2" stakes. The UK school history syllabus has been criticised for consisting of everything there is to be known about the Nazis, and bugger all else).
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